Houghton Mifflin trade publisher Janet Silver signed a seven-figure world rights deal ensuring that one of the house's bestselling authors, Robert Stone, will stay with it for the foreseeable future. The contract, signed with agent Neal Olson at Donadio & Olson, calls for a new novel that will involve a campus murder, a book of short stories and a memoir—the latter dealing with the author's New York childhood with a schizophrenic mother. The first of the books will appear in 2004. Stone, the National Book Award—winning author of A Flag Before Sunrise, among others, has a new novel, Bay of Souls, due in April.