Wendy Strothman, who resigned as head of Houghton Mifflin's trade and reference division in summer 2002, is expanding the Boston literary agency she established last fall. The newest addition is Dan O'Connell, who worked with Strothman at Houghton Mifflin and Beacon Press, as senior publicity director (he's working with clients on the early positioning of their books). O'Connell joins former Yale University Press director John Ryden, who has signed on with Strothman as an affiliate agent.
"It may not be every publisher's dream. But after being kicked upstairs as far as I was, at some point you want to be back close to the books again," said Strothman. The Strothman Agency specializes in narrative nonfiction—memoir, history, science and nature—and selected fiction. The agency has already racked up several sales, including books to Wendy Wolf at Viking, Ileene Smith at Random House, Andrea Schulz at Harcourt and Andrea Pinkney at Houghton Mifflin.
Strothman has also helped form a TV production company, Prologue Productions, together with author James Carroll and agent Don Cutler. The studio will produce Carroll's bestselling Constantine's Sword, which Strothman edited, as a TV series, with Orin Jacoby, who has done work for PBS and the BBC.
