From YA to A
YA author Melissa Marr has closed her first adult deal with her longtime publisher, HarperCollins. Merrilee Heifetz of Writers House brokered the deal for two books for mid-to-high six figures. Jennifer Brehl at HC took North American rights. Heifetz described the first book, Graveminder, as “Six Feet Under laced with ancient Irish evil and a dash of Faulkner”; the second book is currently untitled. Marr’s teen books Wicked Lovely and Ink Exchange, dark paranormal titles featuring fairies who coexist uneasily with the few humans who can see them, earned starred PW reviews and were Book Sense Picks.
Voice Gets a 'Lift’
Former columnist Kelly Corrigan—who wrote A Middle Place, about discovering she had breast cancer at the same time her father was diagnosed with bladder cancer—has inked a two-book deal with Voice. Barbara Jones acquired North American rights via Andrea Barzvi of ICM, to Lift, which the publisher called “an inspirational essay in the tradition of Anna Quindlen’s A Short Guide to a Happy Life.” The slim volume—Quindlen’s book clocked in at a mere 64 pages and Corrigan’s is planned to be 96 pages—aims to prove that life’s unexpected hurdles “are essential ingredients in the richest possible lives.” The second title is planned to be a sequel of sorts to A Middle Place. Lift is slated for March 2010 and the second book, as yet untitled, for May 2011.
Paris, Je T’Aime
Reagan Arthur, at her eponymous imprint at Little, Brown, nabbed, in a pre-empt, world rights to Elena Mauli Shapiro’s debut novel, about a 20th-century French woman, called 13 Rue Thérèse. The book’s inspiration is a box of letters the author discovered while growing up at the titular address. Bonnie Nadell, of the Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell Literary Agency, brokered the deal.
On Hinduism
In an auction, Trace Murphy of Doubleday Religion acquired world rights to Harvard professor Diana Eck’sIndia: A Sacred Geography. Eck, who’s written about Hinduism before (in scholarly papers and university press books like Columbia University Press’s Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India), here introduces the basic tenets of the religion and lays out its place in the history of India. Jill Kneerim at Kneerim & Williams did the deal, and the book is slated for 2010.
Of the Hipsterati
Yaniv Soha at St. Martin’s nabbed North American rights in what the house would only call “an aggressive” pre-empt to comedian Joe Mande’s Look at This Fucking Hipster. Born out of Mande’s popular Web site of the same name (www.latfh.com), which features pictures of supposed hipsters accompanied by snarky captions, the illustrated book will both mock and celebrate hipster culture. Hannah Brown Gordon of Foundry brokered the deal in conjunction with the L.A. management company Generate.
Built to Last
Tina Bennett of Janklow & Nesbit sold North American rights to Parthenon Revisited, Joan Breton Connelly’s involved take on what she believes is the most influential building in Western history. George Andreou at Knopf pre-empted the book, in which the NYU art history/classics professor and MacArthur “genius” winner dissects the Parthenon’s exterior details—specifically its elaborate frieze, which originally featured more than 300 figures and was over 500 feet in length—to offer a new interpretation of Athenian culture.
Correction: In a deal reported last week, Rebecca Gladding is the co-author of Free Will and Free Won’t, along with Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz. Gladding is a UCLA research psychiatrist and the psychiatrist on Obsessed. Both were repped by Susan Rabiner.
