Michelle
Kuo is
a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She has worked in a
poverty law clinic in Oakland California, taught writing at San Quentin
prison, and clerked for two federal judges in San Francisco. She has
published in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Review of Books.
She currently lives in France, where her husband teaches history at the
American University of Paris.
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▪ UK & Translation rights available
▪ Proposal available; Ms due July 2014
READING WITH PATRICK
In 2009
Michelle Kuo was in law school, after having spent two years in a very
poor part of Arkansas with Teach for America, when to her shock she learned
that one of her most promising former students, Patrick Roddy, had killed
someone. After visiting Patrick, she made the impulsive decision to stay. At
first, she didn't have any idea what she would do there, but visiting Patrick
again, realizing that he had lapsed back into illiteracy, she made another
impulsive decision and gave him homework. In this way, they recreated
their roles as teacher and student, and started reading together, beginning
with The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.
Reading with Patrick is the story of the seven months
Michelle spent teaching Patrick in jail. It's about Michelle's
experience as an Asian-American whose parents are dismayed by their
daughter's unconventional choices. It's about her loneliness in the
Mississippi Delta, and the urban pleasures that pull her guiltily away. It's a
meditation on the obligations of the privileged, and how so many in our country
are abandoned. Throughout the story Michelle wonders about what she's
doing, whether it's crazy and whether it will make any difference for Patrick.
But in the end, even though she resists too-easy redemptive stories of
teacherly heroism, it really does feel as if her astonishing rescue mission
will succeed. We start to think that Patrick's life will really be
changed.
Like Reading Lolita in Teheran, it's a book
about the redemptive power of reading and literature. Like The Blind Side, it's
a book about what can be done for a single talented young person, even after
they've been utterly abandoned, if there's enough commitment. Like Pat Conroy's
The Water is Wide, it's a book about
the dedication of a teacher who travels to one of the poorest parts of the
country, and through sheer teacherly energy, finds a way to connect.
Alvaro
Enrigue was
born in Mexico in 1969. He is
the award-winning author of five novels and two books of short stories. His first novel La muerte de un instalador
won the 1996 Joaquín Mortiz Prize. In 2007, the “Bogotá39” project named him
one of the most promising Latin American writers of his generation. Enrigue’s
writing has appeared in the London Review
of, n+1, The Beliver, Bomb Magazine and
his short stories have been widely anthologized.
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US, Can.,audio (Riverhead); UK (Harvill); France (Buchet
Chastel); Spain (Anagrama); Germany (Blessing); Italy (Feltrinelli); Sweden (Natur
och Kultur); Brazil (Companhia das Letras)
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Manuscript available
SUDDEN DEATH: A Novel
Winner of the 2013 Herralde Prize
Álvaro
Enrigue… belongs to many literary traditions at once and shows a great mastery
of them all. –Carlos Fuentes
In SUDDEN
DEATH (MUERTE SÚBITA), Álvaro Enrigue's Herralde prize winning tour de force,
the conceit of a game of tennis between Caravaggio and Quevedo presents an
allegory for all of Counterreformation Europe's bloody clashes and New World
conquest.
When
in 1599 the dissolute painter and the poet take to a Roman tennis court, the
stakes are uncertain. But as the game proceeds, a number of talismanic
objects appear, transporting us from the court to history's grand stage. Like
the titular goldfinch in Donna Tartt’s novel, an iridescent scapular around
Quevedo’s neck leads us on a detective story across centuries and continents—in
this case to conquistador Hernan Cortes' first contact with the Mayans. In the
manner of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose, Enrigue draws on features
of the picaresque and magical realism, while cribbing pages from Baroque works
of history, literature and philosophy. Unfolding over three sets, the last
ending in a game of sudden death, the comedic match around which the narrative
is organized reveals a tragedy. The result is a powerful meditation on the
nature of conquest, violence, religion, and modernity told through a match in
turn playful, bawdy, and outrageous.
Now
based in New York, Álvaro Enrigue is one of Latin America's finest writers at
work today. With this dazzling epic he is sure to claim his rightful place as
an inheritor of the tradition of Borges and Bolaño
Backlist: Decencia (2011); Vidas Perpendiculars (2008); Hipotermia
(2006); El Cementerio de Sillas (2002); Virtudes Capitales (1998); La Muerte de un Instalador (1996, 2007,
2010)
Eula
Biss
holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. Her second
book, Notes from No Man's Land, received the Graywolf Press Nonfiction
Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism. Her work
has also been recognized by a Pushcart Prize, a Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, and
a 21st Century Award from the Chicago Public Library as well as Guggenheim and
NEA Fellowships. She teaches at Northwestern University.
Rights Sold:
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Audio (Highbridge)
▪ US Publication September 2014
▪ UK & Translation rights available
▪ Manuscript available
ON IMMUNITY
An Inoculation
The
anticipated follow-up to Biss’s NBCC winning Notes from No Man’s Land
A book-length cultural exploration of vaccination,
parenthood, public health, and the body as metaphor. Includes narratives about
Biss’s son’s acquisition of language through bodily metaphor, the personal
politics of vaccination, the history of conscientious objection, vampires and
the rise of inoculation in 19th century England, predatory
capitalism, gender and sexism in medicine, body and environmental pollution,
blood banking, and many other wide ranging topics woven together with Biss’s
fierce intelligence and supple prose. The result is a sprawling but controlled tour de force by one of America’s
leading literary nonfiction practitioners. A portion of the book appeared in
the January 2013 issue of Harper’s
-Graywolf
Fall ‘14 Lead Title
-2014
BEA Editor’s Buzz Panel Selection
-Starred
Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus reviews
“Is essayist Eula Biss Joan Didion’s heiress
apparent? …. Eula Biss' Notes From No Man's Land
is the most accomplished book of essays anyone has written or published so far
in the 21st century.”-Salon
"Imagine Eula Biss as herself a vaccine
against vague and incoherent thinking, as a booster to the acuity of your
thought, as a thermometer taking the temperature of our ideas about purity,
contagion, individuality, and community. [On
Immunity] is a magnificent piece of research and of writing, a surprising
but welcome departure in the career of one of the best younger essayists at work.
And it has vampires in it."
-Rebecca
Solnit
Elaine
M. Hayes received
her doctorate in music history from the University of Pennsylvania. She’s a
magazine writer, editor, and radio producer. She lives in Seattle, Washington.
Rights Sold:
US & Can (Ecco)
▪ US Publication Fall 2016
▪ UK & Translation rights available
▪ Proposal available
queen of bebop
The Musical
Lives of Sarah Vaughan
A
major biography of the jazz and pop legend, the first in over twenty years
Author,
music historian, and Sarah Vaughan expert, Elaine M. Hayes, will deliver a
definitive and exhaustively-researched biography of this underappreciated, but
truly great artist, one of the all-time great vocalists. It will chronicle Vaughan’s
childhood in Newark, her unlikely rise to superstardom and role in developing
Bebop, her three husband/managers who squandered her fortune, and her battles
with her record companies and not to be pigeonholed. It will show how Vaughan
helped take jazz from the downtown clubs to Carnegie Hall, and into the
American canon, and helped break down color barriers in the music industry. It
will update and correct the record, place her within the critical cultural
context of her times, while elevating her status and recognizing her true
influence.
“A
singer who sings so good, I want to cut my wrist with a dull blade and let her
sing me to death.”— Frank Sinatra
Justin
Hocking is
an avid surfer and skateboarder. He edited Life
and Limb: Skateboarders Write from the Deep End, and his work has appeared
in the Rumpus, Thrasher, and the Normal
School. He is the executive director of the Independent Publishing Resource
Center, and lives in Portland, Oregon.
Rights Sold:
World English (Graywolf Press)
▪ US Publication March 2014
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Books available
The Great Floodgates
of the Wonderworld
Surfing
in Far Rockaway, romantic obsession, and Moby-Dick converge in this
dynamic and compelling memoir
Justin
Hocking, like many transplants to the city, doesn’t adapt easily to New York.
Far Rockaway is his escape. There he discovers surfing and a colorful circle of
friends, both of which prove vital to his sanity, especially in the wake of a
traumatic carjacking. But the tides of this memoir pull in more than
surfboards. As he ventures further into the dark on his own “night sea
journey,” Hocking details his obsessions, from Moby-Dick to Scientology’s naval ties, from environmentalism to the
Iraq war, and from twelve-step meetings to Basquiat. The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld is an affecting portrait of
Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Far Rockaway, Queens, and the swirling tides of big
city life.
-Starred Kirkus & Library Journal Reviews
- A Barnes & Noble Discover
Great New Writers Pick
“This beautiful memoir is beyond cool. A voyage
both erudite and affecting.” –Junot Díaz
“As
generous as it is smart, as intimate as it is grand, as illuminating as it is
dark. With grace and guts, Justin Hocking dares to go where few men have gone
before: not only out to sea, but also into the depths of the human heart.”—Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
“With
nearly pitch-perfect tone, Hocking impressively builds [Great Floodgates of
the Wonderworld] around a series of tension-and-release vignettes that roll
through the narrative like waves. . . . Hocking's journey will prove relevant
and immediate in its exploration of maturation and experiencing both spiritual
collapse and, eventually, renewal."—The Boston
Globe
Monica
Byrne studied
fiction with Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson, Kelly Link and Geoff Ryman at the
Clarion Workshop. She has published
fiction in Gargoyle, Shimmer, Fantasy Magazine and Electric
Velocipede, and nonfiction in Wellesley
Magazine and HowlRound: The Journal
of New American Plays. She holds
degrees in biochemistry from Wellesley College and MIT.
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(Crown); Germany (Heyne); UK (Little Brown)
▪
US Publication May 2014
▪
Translation rights available
▪
Edited Manuscript available
THE GIRL IN THE ROAD
A Novel
A
thrilling first novel -- literary speculative fiction, with elements of
feminist sci-fi.
The Girl in the Road
is set at two different times in the near future, with alternating narrative
threads. In 2068, India has become the dominant political power in the
world. New energy technologies have been
developed, but it's too late to prevent the seas from rising and changing the
planet’s coastal geography. Meena, a young Indian woman who is wounded and
fleeing from a traumatic event she can't remember, decides to escape by walking
the Trail, a floating energy-harvesting pontoon bridge that spans the entire
Arabian Sea from Mumbai to Djibouti on the east coast of Africa. It’s forbidden to walk on the Trail, but a
shadowy underground subculture has emerged, the Walkers.
Forty
years earlier, in 2026, a slave girl named Mariama flees her home in Mauritania
after witnessing the rape of her mother. She finds refuge in a truck caravan
headed across the Sahara, which is carrying a mysterious cargo. Mariama
addresses her story to the person she calls Yemaya, a young woman who joins the
caravan in Dakar and takes Mariama under her wing. Increasingly Mariama becomes
obsessed with Yemaya, seeing her as a goddess, as they journey across Africa
towards Ethiopia. But when they finally
arrive in Addis Ababa, Yemaya disappears. Mariama never recovers from this
abandonment, but keeps Yemaya in her, even as she grows up, goes to university,
takes part in growing anti-Indian protests, and falls in love with a young
Indian doctor.
The
two stories alternate, with Meena travelling west, and Mariama travelling
east. But it is only at the end, in a
stunning climax, that we understand how closely the two stories parallel each
other, and how Meena and Mariama are linked.
“It's
transfixing to watch Monica Byrne become a major player in SF with her debut
novel: so sharp, so focused and so human. Beautifully drawn people in a future
that feels so close you can touch it, blended with the lush language and
concerns of myth. It builds a bridge from past to future, from East to
West. Glorious stuff.” —Neil Gaiman, author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane
PJ
Tracy is
the pseudonym of mother-daughter writing duo P.J. and Traci Lambrecht, winners
of the Anthony, Barry, Gumshoe, and Minnesota Book Awards. Their novels, Monkeewrench, Live Bait, Dead Run, Snow
Blind, and Shoot to Thrill are
national and international bestsellers.
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UK: Penguin UK
▪ US Publication Summer 2014
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Unedited Manuscript available
FERTILE GROUND
New
novel in the international bestselling Monkeewrench series
Minneapolis
homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called to the recently
slain body of a young woman found in a wooded city park. Everything about the
scene is all too familiar, harkening back to a year old unsolved murder where
an Ace of Spades was found under that victim’s shirt. When they discover a Two
of Spades on their current victim, and a Three of Spades on a third, their
worst fears are confirmed -- there is a serial killer operating and he plans to
finish the deck.
At
the same time, the Monkeewrench Software founders – Grace MacBride, Harley
Davidson, Annie Belinsky, and Roadrunner – find themselves at personal and
career crossroads. Weary of the darker side of their computer work with the
police, they agree to take on a private missing persons case in a small farming
community in southwestern Minnesota.
But that
respite doesn’t last long -- as Magozzi and Gino frantically try to find their
killer while Monkeewrench works through the puzzles of an old farmer’s missing
daughter, there is a shocking, seemingly random attempt on Harley Davidson’s
life. A day later, they find Harley’s
new romantic interest murdered and dumped in a garbage can on his property. The
FBI and the DEA suddenly descend on their investigation, hampering their work
to find the unlikely connections that ultimately weave together a farmer’s missing
daughter, a dead undercover agent, a serial killer, and a criminal operation in
the heart of the city.
Praise for Monkeewrench:
“[A]
smart thriller.”—The New York Times
Book Review
“A killer read in every way.”—People
“Fast, fresh, funny, and outrageously suspenseful.”—Harlan Coben
“A killer read in every way.”—People
“Fast, fresh, funny, and outrageously suspenseful.”—Harlan Coben
Colin Asher’s
writing and reporting have appeared in over two dozen publications, including The Believer, Los Angeles Review of Books, Boston
Globe, and The American Prospect.
In 2007 he was the recipient of the Cushing Niles Dolbeare Award for magazine
reporting for his feature in the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Rights
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Canada: W.W. Norton
▪ UK
& Translation available
▪
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▪
Publication 2016
never a lovely so real
Examining
the work and life of a master of American naturalism--with cameos by Bellow,
Wright, Hemingway, de Beauvoir—Colin Asher reclaims Nelson Algren as a literary
treasure
Expanded
from his article in The Believer, Colin Asher reclaims the life and work
of a forgotten master of American naturalism. Remembered as the lover of Simone
de Beauvoir chronicled in The Mandarins and the first winner of the
National Book Award for The Man With the Golden Arm, Algren was a writer
whose eye for the quotidian injustices, cruelties, and heartbreak of America’s
scorned and forgotten produced some of the greatest novels of the twentieth
century. In his depictions of Chicago slums, replete with bookies, tough guys,
whores, and junkies, Algren--along with contemporaries Agee, Trumbo, Bellow,
Wright, and Hemingway--came to define the American aesthetic in the postwar
period.
In
Never a Lovely So Real, Asher grafts the life and work of Nelson Algren
onto the larger canvas of the American century, from the Depression to
McCarthyism to the numbing apathy that emerged post ‘68. Most importantly
however, Asher presents a critical reinterpretation of Algren’s work and
champions the late Algren as an unsung innovator of literary nonfiction. To all
his tasks Asher brings an incisive intelligence and the gifts of a keen
observer. In Never a Lovely So Real Asher offers a portrait of Algren
that is also a portrait of America; a chronicle of the depths of one writer’s
commitment to his craft and his conscience.
Brooks
Haxton
has published six collections of poems with Knopf. His poems and prose have
appeared in Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times Book Review, the New Yorker, and the Paris
Review. In 2013 the Fellowship of Southern Writers presented him with the
Hanes Award, recognizing a distinguished body of work by a poet in mid-career. This
is his first work of prose.
Rights Sold:
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▪ US Publication May 2014
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Edited Manuscript available
FADING HEARTS ON THE RIVER
An Improbable Story of Texas
Hold ‘EM
A
nonfiction rollercoaster about games of chance and the game of life
By
the spring of 2014, in his most recent year of playing against the biggest
sharks in tournament poker, Isaac Haxton had won four million dollars. Not only
that, for eight years running he had won more than a quarter of a million
dollars every year. But in 2006 when he told his parents, after three years in
computer science at Brown University, that he wanted to play poker full time,
the outcome was far from certain.
Following
his son on the plunge into this career, Brooks Haxton, a recreational gambler
and longtime poet and teacher, takes readers on a rollicking tour of game
theory, financial strategy, and the mysteries of parenthood. Fading Hearts
on the River is one family’s story of playing the odds—the odds for
a career in poetry or in poker, the odds for the survival of a newborn son in
intensive care, the luck of the draw in Texas hold ’em, and the gamble of
placing your heart in the care of another.
While
Isaac climbs the ranks of international poker, winning more in one hand than
his father has earned from all his books combined, he visits ports of call in
the Bahamas, Las Vegas, and Malta. Millions of dollars come and go. Fading
Hearts on the River celebrates the staggering luck of a gifted mind at
play and the ultimate luck of love
“I loved this book - gave a sad
groan when I saw I was out of pages - hugely compelling, kind, witty – an
utterly charming & frank voice.”–George Saunders
“I
was knocked out by the narrative power and polymath brilliance, the elliptical
beauty and elegance of thought inside a story with great momentum. It's a book about
child rearing, money in absentia and in abundance, poker, the nature of chance,
the psychology of deception....I can see this being a cult hit ala Elif Batuman's Possessed.”
–Mary
Karr
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US, Can. + Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and China (Coffeehouse)
▪ UK &
other translation available
▪
Manuscript available
▪
US Publication 2015
A COLLPASE OF HORSES
Stories
Brian Evenson is the recipient of three O. Henry
Prizes as well as an NEA fellowship. He has authored ten books of fiction. In 2009 he published the
novel Last Days, which won the American Library Association's award for
Best Horror Novel of 2009, and the collection Fugue State, both of which
were on Time Out New York's best books of 2009 list. His novel The
Open Curtain (Coffee House Press) was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an
IHG Award. His work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Japanese
and Slovenian. Brian directs Brown University's Literary Arts Program. Other
books include The Wavering Knife (which won the IHG Award for best story
collection), Dark Property, and Altmann's Tongue (Knopf). He has translated work by
Christian Gailly, Jean Frémon, Claro, Jacques Jouet, Eric Chevillard, Antoine
Volodine, and others.
“There
is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America
than Brian Evenson.”—George Saunders
“Brian
Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor
both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar
Allan Poe.”
—Jonathan
Lethem
Mary
Miller’s
work has appeared in journals and anthologies, including McSweeney's, Oxford
American, Tin House, and The Rumpus. Her short story
collection Big World was published in
2009 by Short Flight and will soon go into its third printing. She is currently
a James A. Michener Fellow in Fiction at the University
of Texas at Austin ,
where she serves as editor-in-chief of Bat City Review.
Rights Sold:
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Norton); Germany (Metrolit)
▪
US publication February 2014
▪
Translation rights available
▪
Edited Manuscript available
THE LAST DAYS OF CALIFORNIA
A Novel
A
compelling, humorous, and utterly engaging debut novel
When most families
take a road trip to California it ends in a visit to Disneyland or to far-away
relatives. When Jess's family takes a road trip to California, it ends in the
Rapture.
At least that's the
plan when they leave their hometown of Montgomery, Alabama equipped with
matching t-shirts announcing, “King Jesus Returns!” and bundles of educational
tracts to hand out to non-believers.
At 14 years old,
Jess isn't quite sure what to make of all this. Unlike her beautiful and
rebellious older sister Elise, who scorns everything about them, Jess has
always accepted her parents' evangelical beliefs. This pilgrimage is different.
Before they left, Jess discovered that not only had her father just lost his
job; Elise is also pregnant. Over the next four days Jess questions her faith
in God, her parents, and herself as she struggles to keep Elise's secret and
wonders whether her family will survive even if the Rapture doesn't come.
Miller's voice is
both fierce and compassionate. Her cutting, deadpan sense of humor belies
sympathy for characters whose delusions are a necessary protection against
circumstances they feel powerless to change.
“Rarely, if ever, have we seen young American womanhood painted in such
a raw and honest and heartbreaking way.” - Los
Angeles Review of Books
"Miller has created a narrator worthy of comparison with those of
contemporaries such as Karen Thompson Walker and of greats such as Carson
McCullers."
-Publishers Weekly, Starred
Review
“[A] terrific first novel." -Laurie
Muchnick, New York Times Book Review
Susan
Bordo,
Otis A. Singletary Chair in the Humanities at University of Kentucky, is the
author of Unbearable Weight and The Male Body.
Rights Sold:
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Harcourt); UK (Oneworld);
Audio (Audible)
▪
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▪
Books available
▪
Publication April 2013
The Creation of Anne Boleyn
A New Look at England’s Most
Notorious Queen
Part biography, part
cultural history, The Creation of Anne Boleyn is a fascinating
reconstruction of Anne’s life and an illuminating look at her afterlife in the
popular imagination. Why is Anne so compelling? Why has she inspired such
extreme reactions? What did she really look like? Was she the flaxen-haired
martyr of Romantic paintings or the raven-haired seductress of
twenty-first-century portrayals? (Answer: neither.) And perhaps the most
provocative questions concern Anne’s death more than her life. How could Henry
order the execution of a once beloved wife? Drawing on scholarship and critical
analysis, Bordo probes the complexities of one of history’s most infamous
relationships.
Bordo also shows how generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers imagined and re-imagined Anne: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto “mean girl,” feminist icon, and everything in between. In this lively book, Bordo steps off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the competing mythologies.
Bordo also shows how generations of polemicists, biographers, novelists, and filmmakers imagined and re-imagined Anne: whore, martyr, cautionary tale, proto “mean girl,” feminist icon, and everything in between. In this lively book, Bordo steps off the well-trodden paths of Tudoriana to expertly tease out the human being behind the competing mythologies.
“A
great read for Boleyn fans and fanatics alike….”
-Kirkus
“The
young queen has been the source of fascination for nearly half a millennium,
and her legacy continues; this engaging portrait culminates with an intriguing
exploration of Boleyn’s recent reemergence in pop culture”
-PW
Bruce Grierson is a
Canadian science journalist, whose work has been published in Psychology Today, the New York Times Magazine, Discover and Scientific American among many others. His first book was U-Turn: What If You Woke Up One Morning and Realized You Were Living
the Wrong Life? (Bloomsbury, 2008).
Rights Sold:
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(Holt); Canada
(Random House); Brazil (Pensamento); Chinese Simple (Apocalypse); Czech
Republic (Mlada Fronta)
▪
Translation rights available
▪
Copyedited ms. available
▪
Publication April 2014
what Makes olga run?
The Mystery of the
Ninety-Something Track Star who is Outpacing Time; and What She Can Teach Us
About How to Live Longer and Happier Lives
When Olga Kotelko first stepped onto the
running track at age 77, she wasn’t expecting much. She’d retired at 65 from a career as a
teacher in Vancouver; she’d played a little recreational softball, but she’d
never been an athlete. No one knew she
was about to break every record in the book.
But that’s what she did. In the 100 meter, 200 meter, 400 meter, 4 x
100 relay, hammer throw, javelin, shot put, discus, long jump, high jump, and
triple jump, Olga (who is now 94) has gone on to set 23 new world records for
her age category.
Now Canadian journalist Bruce Grierson has set
out to learn what makes Olga tick.
Following her to Masters Circuit track events, and tagging along as she
allows herself to become the subject of scientific scrutiny, Grierson explores
not only the secret to Olga’s astonishing abilities, but what practical lessons
we can learn ourselves, about how to stay healthy as we age.
A warm and inspiring story about achieving our
full potential.
Thomas
Satterlee
is the recipient of the American-Scandinavian Foundation Translation Prize, a
National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and several
Pushcart Prize nominations. He has published two collections of Danish poetry
in translation and a collection of original poetry. Burning Wyclif was a 2007 American Library Association Notable book
and a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Award.
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Guild); Denmark (Rosenkilde & Bahnhof)
▪ UK
& Translation rights available
▪ Books
available
▪
Publication May 2013
THE STAGES
A Novel
Set
in Copenhagen, Denmark, just months before the bicentennial birthday of
melancholy native son Søren Kierkegaard, SOREN’S DESK is part literary mystery,
part philosophical exploration, and part witty takedown of academic and social
pretentions.
When Søren Kierkegaard’s
writing desk spills a manuscript of poems just months before his 200th
birthday, many conclude that it must be a lost work by the famous
philosopher—but Head of Fraudulent Affairs, Rolf Poulsen, isn’t so sure.
Mette Rasmussen, Director of
the Søren Kierkegaard Institute, must persuade two feuding scholars to set
aside their differences and cooperate in the international celebration she is
planning. Everything starts to go wrong, however, when the philosopher’s
writing desk is moved to the site of the main display and gets caught up in a
possible bomb threat that shuts down the city and brings in the Danish Bomb
Squad. No explosives are found, but the desk contains a previously
unknown manuscript of poems supposedly written by Kierkegaard—and one of the
feuding scholars has apparently hanged himself.
The job of authenticating the
manuscript and assuring its safety goes to Inspector Rolf Poulsen, Head of
Fraudulent Affairs at Danish National Police. As Inspector Poulsen begins
his investigation, he discovers links to an earlier case of his, one that
involved infamous con artist Stein Blicher, Denmark’s own version of Bernard
Madoff. The Inspector follows clues that become personal threats on his
own life and finds himself making compromising deals with the city’s Mayor and
its Chief of Police. Before the case is closed, he’s learned more than he
thought he ever wanted to about his illustrious, esoteric kinsman—not to
mention himself.
Edited
by: Frances
Goldin (yes, our Frances Goldin!), Michael Steven Smith, and Debby Smith.
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South Korea (Ermamama)
▪ Translation
rights available
▪ Ms.
+ books available
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Publication January 2014
IMAGINE:
Living in a Socialist USA
The word
"socialism" is one of the most misunderstood terms in the US, more
potent, as the recent presidential campaign proved, as a term of derision than as
a meaningful system of ideas to draw upon. Nothing could be more un-American.
With essays by 32 leading
thinkers and writers, Imagine reclaims the word by reimagining our
society:
Capitalism: The
Real Enemy by Paul Street; The Future
Will Be Ecosocialist by Joel Kovel;
A Democratically Run Economy Can Replace the Oligarchy by Ron Reosti; The Shape of a Post-Capitalist Future by Rick Wolff; Law in a Socialist USA by Michael Steven Smith; Alternatives to
the Present System of Capitalist Injustice by Mumia Abu-Jamal and Angela
Davis; Socialism Is the Highest Expression of Human Rights by Ajamu Baraka; Personal, Emotional, and
Sexual Life Without Capitalism by Harriet
Fraad and Tess Fraad Wolff ; A
Woman’s Workday in a Socialist U.S.A. by Renate
Bridenthal; Dignity, Respect, Equality, Love by Blanche Wiesen Cook; How Queer Life Might Be Different in a
Socialist U.S.A. by Leslie Cagan and
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz; Drugs in a
Society Where People Care About Each Other by Steven Wishnia; Immigration: Immigrant Workers Point the Way to a
Better World by Juan Gonzalez;
Welfare in a New Society: An End to Intentional Impoverishment and Degradation
by Frances Fox Piven; Food for All:
Creating a Socially Sustainable Food System by Arun Gupta; The Right to Housing by Tom Angotti; Socialized Medicine Means Everyone Gets Care,
Regardless of Whether They Have Money by Dave
Lindorff; Teach Freedom! by William
Ayers; Imagining Art After Capitalism by Mat Callahan; Prometheus Completely Unbound: What Science and
Technology Could Accomplish in a Socialist America by Clifford D. Conner; First-Class News: The Media in a Socialist
U.S.A. by Fred Jerome; Imagine the
Angels of Bread by Martin Espada; We
Be Reading Marx Where We From: Socialism and the Black Freedom Struggle by Kazembe Balagun; You Are the Light of
the World: Speech Via Mic Check at Occupy Wall Street by Joel Kovel; The Working-Class Majority by Michael Zweig; Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here? A
Proposal by Michael Moore; How to
Achieve Economic Democracy in the United States by Clifford D. Conner; The Capitalist Road: From Chinese Sweatshops to
Detroit’s Decay by Dianne Feeley;
Thanksgiving 2077: A Short Story by Terry
Bisson
Helene
Wecker currently
lives near San Francisco. She has an MFA from Columbia. The Golem & the Jinni is her first
novel.
Rights
Sold:
US&Can. (HarperCollins);
UK (Blue Door); Israel (Miskal); Germany (Hoffman&Campe); Italy
(NeriPozza); Norway (Juritzen); Poland (Fabryka); Holland (Dutch Media); France
(Laffont); Russia (Azbooka); Czech Rep. (Beta); Taiwan (Marco Polo); Indonesia
(PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama); Spain
(Tusquets); Turkey (Dogan); Hungary (Gabo Kiado); Brazil (Darkside); Albania
(Morava); Greece (Psihalos)
▪ Translation
rights available
▪ Books
available
▪
Publication April 2013
THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI
A Novel
The
Golem and the Djinni,
an immigrant saga that combines elements of Jewish and Arab folk
mythology, is the story of two magical creatures who arrive separately in New
York in 1899. The Golem is a woman created by an aged dabbler in the dark
kabbalistic arts to be the wife of a man who then dies at sea, leaving her
unmoored and adrift as the ship comes into New York harbor; the Djinni is a man,
trapped by a wizard in a copper flask and released accidentally by a Syrian
tinsmith in lower Manhattan.
The narrative traces their
respective journeys, as they explore the strange human city. The Golem is
besieged by human desires and wishes, which she can feel tugging at her; the
Djinni is aggravated by human dullness. But they both work to make at
least a temporary place for themselves in this new world, and develop tentative
relationships. The two of them meet about a third of the way into the
novel; it is not exactly a romance, and at first they are hostile and
suspicious, but they end up forming a strong bond, since only they can
recognize each other for what they truly are.
This is a marvelous and
absorbing work of fiction, a combination of historical novel and magical
fable. With threads from Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, it
belongs in a tradition of contemporary Jewish writing that draws on folk and
pop cultural materials, like Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier
and Clay and other works of magical realism.
"….This impressive first novel manages to
combine the narrative magic of “The Arabian Nights” with the kind of emotional
depth, philosophical seriousness and good, old-fashioned storytelling found in
the stories of Isaac
Bashevis Singer."
-The New
York Times
"Wecker's storytelling skills dazzle...[an]intoxicating
fusion of fantasy and historical fiction."-Entertainment Weekly
Rutu
Modan
first graphic novel, Exit
Wounds, won the prestigious Eisner Award for best graphic novel
in 2008. She has done comic strips for
the Israeli newspapers Yedioth Aharonot
and Ma’ariv and illustrations for The New Yorker, Le Monde, The New York Times
and many other publications. Modan currently lives in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Rights Sold:
US
& Can. (Drawn & Quarterly); UK (Cape); France (Actes Sud); Spain (Sins
Entido); Italy (Lizard); Poland (Kultura Gniewu); Holland (Oog & Bilk);
Germany (Carlsen); Coatia (Naklada Fibra); Spanish (Sins Entido)
▪
Translation rights available
▪ Books
available
▪ US
publication May 2013
THE PROPERTY
A hilarious, poignant
story of family squabbling, confused identity, and combative romance
85-year-old Regina travels back
to Warsaw from Israel for the first time since 1939, to reclaim the family
apartment, lost during the war. Travelling with her is her 30-year-old
granddaughter Mica. Once in Warsaw, Regina begins to act strangely,
pouting and sending Mica on wild goose chases. Secretly Regina is less
interested in the family apartment than in the man who occupies it: Roman, her
Polish sweetheart, with whom she tried to run away when she was young.
After her parents packed her off to Palestine, alone and pregnant, she
had never seen Roman again. Now she is summoning her courage to meet him
once more. Meanwhile Mica dreams of the money a Warsaw apartment might bring.
She takes up with a young Polish artist who makes his living guiding
Jewish groups to Holocaust sites, and they begin a light-hearted romance while
they try to figure out where the apartment is, and who rightfully owns it. At
the end, everyone meets in a cemetery on the Day of the Dead, the Polish
holiday when people gather at the graves of their families. In this
beautiful candlelit scene, secrets are revealed, and romances are rekindled.
Recent
backlist:
Aaron
Bobrow-Strain is associate professor of politics at Whitman
College in Washington. He writes and teaches on the politics of the global food
system. He is the author of Intimate Enemies: Landowners, Power, and
Violence in Chiapas.
Rights Sold:
US & Can. (Beacon); South Korea (Viz&Biz); Audio (Audible)
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Books available
▪ Publication January 2013
WHITE BREAD
A Social History of the Store-Bought
Loaf
The story of how white bread
became white trash, this social history shows how our relationship with the
most beloved and reviled food staple reflects our country's changing values.
How did white bread, once an
icon of American progress, become “white trash”? In this lively history of
bakers, dietary crusaders, and social reformers, Aaron Bobrow-Strain shows us
that what we think about the humble, puffy loaf says a lot about who we are and
what we want our society to look like.
White Bread teaches us that when people debate what one should eat, they are also wrestling with larger questions of race, class, immigration, and gender. As Bobrow-Strain traces the story of bread, from the first factory loaf to the latest gourmet pain au levain, he shows how efforts to champion “good food” reflect dreams of a better society—even as they reinforce stark social hierarchies.
Given that open disdain for “unhealthy” eaters and discrimination on the basis of eating habits grow increasingly acceptable, White Bread is a timely and important examination of what we really talk about when we talk about food.
White Bread teaches us that when people debate what one should eat, they are also wrestling with larger questions of race, class, immigration, and gender. As Bobrow-Strain traces the story of bread, from the first factory loaf to the latest gourmet pain au levain, he shows how efforts to champion “good food” reflect dreams of a better society—even as they reinforce stark social hierarchies.
Given that open disdain for “unhealthy” eaters and discrimination on the basis of eating habits grow increasingly acceptable, White Bread is a timely and important examination of what we really talk about when we talk about food.
“This terrific book does for
the humble loaf what Mark Kurlansky does for cod.”
—Raj
Patel, author of Stuffed and Starved
“This is entertaining history and an example of food studies in action”
“This is entertaining history and an example of food studies in action”
—Marion Nestle
Barbara
Kingsolver
is the author of seven works of fiction, including The Lacuna, The
Poisonwood Bible, Animal Dreams, and The Bean Trees, as well as
books of poetry, essays, and creative nonfiction. In 2000, she was awarded the
National Humanities Medal, the US’s highest honor for service through the arts
and in 2010 she won the Orange Prize for The Lacuna. She lives with her
family on a farm in southern Appalachia.
Rights
Sold:
US&Can.
(HarperCollins); UK (Faber); Holland (Atlas- Contact); France (Rivages) Norway
(Juritzen); Poland (Proszynski); Italy (Neripozza); Turkey (Pegasus); Israel
(Keter); Spain (Planeta); Germany (C. Bertelsman)
▪
Translation rights available
▪ Books
available
▪
Publication November 2012
FLIGHT BEHAVIOR*
A Novel
From
the Orange Prize-winning author of The
Lacuna comes a suspenseful and brilliant new novel about catastrophe and
denial
Discontented with her life of
poverty on a failing farm in the Eastern United States, Dellarobia, a young
mother, impulsively seeks out a love affair. Instead, on the Appalachian
mountains above her farm, she discovers something much more profoundly
life-changing – a beautiful and terrible marvel of nature. As the world around
her is suddenly transformed by a seeming miracle, can the old certainties they
have lived by for centuries remain unchallenged?
Flight Behavior
is a captivating, topical and deeply human novel touching on class, poverty and
climate change. It is Barbara Kingsolver’s most accessible novel yet, and
explores the truths we live by, and the complexities that lie behind them.
“With her powerful new novel,
Kingsolver (The Lacuna) delivers literary fiction that conveys an urgent
social message”--PW (Starred Review)
“Orange Prize winner Kingsolver (The Lacuna)
performs literary magic, generously illuminating both sides of the culture
wars, from the global-warming debate to public education in
America”—Library Journal (Starred Review)
*Shortlisted for the
2013 Women’s Prize (formerly The Orange Prize)
Previous
publishers:
UK (Faber);
France (Rivages); Italy (Mondadori); Turkey (Pegasus); Spain (Lumen);
Israel
(Modan); Brazil (Versus); Hungary
(Kelly); Norway (Juritzen Forlag); Serbia (Laguna); Romania (Corint); Russia
(Corpus); Greece (Melani); China Simple & Complex (Thinkingdom); Portugal
(Club do Autor); Czech (Jota); Denmark (Verve); Poland (Wydawnictwo Abatroz);
Croatia (Algoritam); Holland (Atlas-Contact)
Janisse Ray is author
of four books of literary nonfiction and a collection of nature poetry. She is
on the faculty of Chatham University’s low-residency MFA program and is a
Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow. She holds an MFA from the University of
Montana, and in 2007 was awarded an honorary doctorate from Unity College in
Maine.
Rights Sold:
World English (Chelsea Green); Turkey (Moda Ofset);
France (Seepia)
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Books available
▪ Publication April 2013
THE SEED UNDERGROUND
A
Growing Revolution to Save Food
In this
enchanting narrative—part memoir, part botany primer, part political manifesto—Ray,
author of the acclaimed Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, and lately returning to her
childhood obsession with farming, has a mission: to inspire us with her own
life to “understand food at its most elemental... the most hopeful thing in the
world. It is a seed. In the era of dying, it is all life.” Ray is inspired by
the eccentric, impassioned, generous characters she visits and interviews,
gardeners and farmers who populate the quietly radical world of seed savers,
from Vermonter Sylvia Davatz, self-proclaimed ‘“Imelda Marcos of seeds,”’ to
the more phlegmatic Bill Keener of Rabin Gap, Ga., who gives Ray two 20-inch
cobs of Keener corn, grown by his family for generations, as well as Greasy
Back beans and some rotten Box Car Willy tomatoes to save for seed. Despite the
book’s occasional tendency toward polemic, avid gardeners will relish
recognizing their idiosyncratic, revolutionary sides in its pages, and it’s
likely to strike a spark in gardening novices. Even couch potatoes will be
enthralled by Ray’s intimate, poetically conversational stories of her
encounters with the “lovely, whimsical, and soulful things [that] happen in a
garden, leaving a gardener giddy.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“If I get to feeling a little blue about our prospects, I’m liable to reach down one of Janisse Ray’s books just so I can hear her calm, wise, strong voice. This one’s my new favorite; a world with her in it is going to do the right thing, I think.”—BILL MCKIBBEN , founder of 350.org
“What a dream of a book—my favorite poet writing about my favorite topic (seeds)....If books can move you to love, this one does.”
—GARY PAUL NABHAN, editor of Renewing America’s Food Tradition
Gretchen
Reynolds pens the Phys Ed column for the The New York Times,
which appears on the “Well” blog online and in the Science Times
print section. An award-winning journalist, her byline has appeared in The New
York Times Magazine, O: The Oprah Magazine, AARP Magazine, Popular
Science, and Outside, among others. She lives in Santa Fe, New
Mexico.
Rights Sold:
World
English (Hudson St.); Complex Chinese (Sun Color); Turkey (Moda Ofset); South
Korea (Content Cave); Finland (Atena); Croatia (EPH Media); Russia (Obook);
Spanish (Random House)
▪
Translation rights available
▪
Books available
▪
Publication April 2012
THE FIRST TWENTY MINUTES
Surprising
Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer
A cutting-edge prescription for
exercise by the New
York Times Phys Ed columnist
At
one point or another, nearly every person who works out wonders: am I doing
this right? Which class is best? Do I work out enough?
Answering
those questions and more, The First Twenty Minutes helps both weekend
warriors dedicated to their performance and readers who simply want to get and
stay fit gain the most from any workout. With the latest findings about the
mental and physical benefits of exercise, personal stories from scientists and
laypeople alike, as well as research-based prescriptions for readers, Gretchen
Reynolds shows what kind of exercise—and how much—is necessary to stay healthy,
get fit, and attain a smaller jeans size.
Inspired
by Reynolds’s wildly popular Phys Ed column for The New York Times,
this book explains how exercise affects the body in distinct ways and provides
the tools readers need to achieve their fitness goals, whether that’s a faster
5K or staying trim.
“Gretchen
Reynolds writes the Phys Ed column in the New York Times, and her book is an
informative and entertaining review of current science about exercise and
fitness, with good, commonsense recommendations that cut through confusing,
often conflicting research on the subject…. Armed
with the information in this book, readers will be inspired and motivated to
reassess their habitual exercise programs and make positive changes” --PW
Molly Caldwll
Crosby is
the author of The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the
Epidemic that Shaped Our History, and Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic that
Remains One of the Medicine’s Greatest Mysteries. Her writing has appeared
in Newsweek, Health, and USA Today.
Rights Sold:
World English (Berkely); Audio (Brilliance)
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Books available
▪ Publication December 2012
THE
GREAT PEARL HEIST
London’s Greatest Thief and Scotland Yard’s Hunt
for the World’s Most Valuable Necklace
The untold story of
the theft of a priceless pearl necklace, that would pit a charming, gentleman
thief in a cat-and-mouse game against Scotland Yard’s most talented detective.
On July 15, 1913, a Parisian
jeweler named Henri Salamons worked in his shop on Rue de Provence, wrapping
the most valuable strand of pearls in the world. The necklace was on loan to him from Max
Mayer, a London jeweler who had spent a fortune assembling it. Most of the pearls had come from Baghdad and
Bombay, and the large center pearl had belonged to Portuguese royalty. Shortly, the necklace would be mailed back to
Mayer in London, but it never arrived.
The necklace, valued at the time more than the Hope diamond, had
disappeared, stolen by a master thief.
That
summer, the hunt for the world’s most valuable pearl necklace would bring
together two brilliant minds – Chief Inspector Alfred Ward, one of the first
criminologists of the modern Scotland Yard, and Joseph Grizard, a celebrated
and dapper jewel thief. Both men were
highly respected and well-known. Both were considered the best in their
professions, and in this front-page case, were set against one another in this case
that riveted Edwardian London.
“A winning true crime tale.”-PW
John
D’Agata is the author of About a Mountain and teaches nonfiction
writing at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he lives.
Jim
Fingal is a software engineer and
writer in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Rights Sold:
World English(Norton); Germany (Hanser); French
(Zones Sensibles)
▪ Translation rights available
▪ Books available
▪ Publication February 2012
The Lifespan of a Fact
An
Essayist and His Fact-Checker Do Battle
In 2003, an essay by John
D’Agata was rejected by a major magazine that commissioned it due to factual
inaccuracies, artistic liberties which the author never shied away from. The essay
was accepted by another magazine, The Believer, but not before they
handed it to their own fact-checker, Jim Fingal. What resulted from that
assignment was seven years of arguments, negotiations, and revisions as D’Agata
and Fingal struggled to navigate the boundaries of literary nonfiction.
“Here is the genius of this
little book, for as it progresses, D'Agata and Fingal turn everything around on
us, until even our most basic assumptions are left unclear …. A vivid and
reflective meditation on the nature of nonfiction as literary art.”
-
L.A. Times
"….
might be the most improbably entertaining book ever published.” –NPR
“[A] whip-smart, mordantly funny, thought-provoking rumination on journalistic responsibility and literary license.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“... less a book than a knock-down, drag-out fight between two tenacious combatants, over questions of truth, belief, history, myth, memory and forgetting.” - New York Times Book Review (cover)
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