Hartman Gets ‘Wayward’ at Norton
Columbia English professor Saidiya Hartman sold North American rights to her book Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments to Norton’s John Glusman. Hartman, who used to direct Columbia’s Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality, uses, Norton said, “fictional and nonfiction narrative techniques” to “tell the story of the transformation in black intimate and social life between 1890 and 1930 by recreating the experience of young urban black women.” Agent Joe Spieler, who has an eponymous shingle, represented Hartman, and the book is set for a winter 2018 publication.

Patrick Takes ‘Arthur Pepper’ to Mira
In a six-figure two-book deal, Mira’s Erika Imranyi preempted North American rights to Phaedra Patrick’s debut novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper. Clare Wallace at Darley Anderson Literary brokered the deal. The action in the book, which has also been sold in a number of foreign countries (including Brazil, Germany, and the U.K.), is spurred by the titular 69-year-old’s discovery of a mysterious charm bracelet among his recently deceased wife’s possessions. Per Mira, the bracelet spawns “a surprising adventure that takes Arthur from London to Paris and as far as India, in an epic quest to find out the truth about his wife’s secret life before they met.”

Moldavsky’s ‘Boy Band’ Serenades Scholastic
Matt Ringler at Scholastic won North American rights, at auction, to Goldy Moldavsky’s debut, Kill the Boy Band. Jenny Bent at the Bent Agency handled the two-book deal—overseeing a six-bidder auction—and the title is set for spring 2016. The book follows a group of girls who, as the agency put it, “accidentally kidnap their least-favorite member of their most favorite boy band” and then have to deal with the aftermath when he winds up dead. Moldavsky, who has a B.A. in journalism from Brooklyn College, has written nonfiction pieces for MovieMaker Magazine.

Hocking Re-Ups at SMP
In a joint deal with Macmillan UK, Rose Hilliard at St Martin’s Press took world English rights, in a sizable six-figure deal, to three new YA novels by Amanda Hocking. Steven Axelrod, who has an eponymous agency, represented Hocking. The books will be published simultaneously in the U.S. and U.K., and the first title in the deal will be a standalone paranormal novel about a traveling circus during the 1980s, called Freeks. The other two books in the deal will be connected, a “duet” as SMP explained, about teen Valkyries, the female figures in Norse mythology who decided who would live (and who would die) in battle. Freeks is set for summer 2016, and the Valkyrie novels are scheduled for 2017.

Morrow Nabs Gortner’s Dietrich Novel
Bestseller C.W. Gortner sold North American rights to his novel about Marlene Dietrich, The Siren from Berlin, to Rachel Kahan at William Morrow. Jean V. Naggar agent Jennifer Weltz brokered the deal for Gortner and said the book chronicles the German actress’s “struggles as an outrageous cabaret doyenne during the Weimar Republic, her bisexual affairs with Hollywood royalty, and her courageous defiance during WWII.” The book is set to be one of Morrow’s lead titles for summer 2016.

Putnam Hires Perri’s ‘Assistants’
Cosmpolitan’s at-large books editor, Camille Perri, sold her debut novel, The Assistants, to Kerri Kolen and Ivan Held at Putnam. Kerry Sparks at Levine Greenberg Rostan handled the world rights deal. Perri was an assistant editor at Esquire before joining Cosmo and also ghostwrote a number of books for Alloy Entertainment. In her novel, which Putnam said was pitched as “The Devil Wears Prada meets Office Space,” 30-year-old billionaire’s assistant Tina Fontana joins forces with her fellow assistants in a scheme to “use their boss’s expense account to pay off their student-loan debt.” The Assistants is set for spring 2016.

Briefs
For HarperCollins, Alyson Day took world rights to Esphyr Slobodkina with Ann Marie Mulhearn Sayer’s picture book, More Caps for Sale: Another Tale of Mischievous Monkeys. The book is a sequel to the children’s classic Caps for Sale, which was written by Slobodkina and originally published in 1940 by W.R. Scott. More Caps for Sale is set for this fall, timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the original. Kirsten Hall at Catbird Productions represented Sayer, as well as the Slobodkina Foundation, in the deal.

Correction: An earlier version of this article stated that Gemma Cooper handled the U.S. sale of Goldy Modavsky's novel; she handled the U.K. sale of the book. Also, More Caps for Sale is a sequel to Caps for Sale, not a prequel.