Back to Schooled
Gordon Korman, the hyper-prolific YA author with projects set up all over town (MTV/Paramount optioned his most recent novel, Born to Rock [Hyperion, Apr.] ), certainly knows how to keep Curtis Brown's Holly Frederick busy. Not only is Frederick out with Korman's Schooled (Hyperion, 2007), about a home-schooled hippie boy suddenly dropped into a public high school, she is also prepping Korman's popular On the Run series (Scholastic) for feature submission. Scholastic's film division optioned the first book in 2005, before it ever hit stores, effectively taking the series off the market. One expired option and 1.5 million copies later, rights are again available to Korman's fast-moving tale of a fugitive brother-and-sister team as they cross the country on the run from the FBI. Curtis Brown's Elizabeth Harding reps Korman for lit.
Do I Make You a Little Horny?
Having proven that food is the ultimate aphrodisiac in his 2004 Cyrano retelling The Food of Love (Viking, 2004), Anthony Capella next lets Cupid loose in the lab in his follow-up, Chemistry for Beginners (no U.S. publisher). This time Capella's hero is not a big-nosed chef, but a geeky neurobiologist who, while researching the female version of Viagra, falls in love with one of his test subjects. Capella's scientist learns an old-fashioned romantic lesson: true love is an affair of the heart, not the mind. Should CAA's Bob Bookman sell Chemistry, Capella will be 3-for-3 in Hollywood: Denise DiNovi and Spyglass Entertainment are developing The Food of Love, while Material Entertainment optioned The Wedding Officer (Little, Brown U.K., Apr.) earlier this year. Carodac King and Rob Kraitt of A.P. Watt represent Capella in the U.K.
Don't Blink!
The Gersh Agency's Sarah Self must have had a severe case of whiplash last week, given her swift sale of Eileen Cook's In the Stars (Berkley, Feb. 2007). Self went on submission with the first novel, about a woman who impersonates a psychic after her boyfriend leaves her for an astrology devotee, last Friday. New Line came calling with a preemptive bid just four days later—a rarity in this sluggish book market. BenderSpink will produce, with New York studio v-p Meridith Finn overseeing the project. Lowenstein-Yost Associate's Rachel Vater handles Cook for lit.
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