Adult Newsletter: May 2026
Up And Coming For Submission
FICTION
Whimsy slaps you in the face in this madcap, witchy romcom from Kat Mackenzie. DIARY OF A SORCERER'S APPRENTICE is a fresh, laugh-out-loud, cozy romantasy that's Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries meets Bedknobs & Broomsticks. When spoiled, Victorian spinster, Eudora Everly, finds herself suddenly without fortune or family, her only option is to move into an ancient, tumbledown cottage left to her by an estranged aunt... in horrid Scotland of all places! Eudora's only real-life skills are 1) complaining and 2) reading by the fire with a cup of hot chocolate that someone else made. Secluded in the middle of an uncanny, Scottish forest with no money, no staff, and only a bald duck for company, Eudora is not going to make it! That's when an utterly preposterous ad for household witchcraft lessons arrives by mail. How absurd! The very idea! She shouldn't try it, should she? Reader, beware! There are dangers ahead, including, but in no way limited to: a moody, Scottish sorcerer who's moving in, a grumpy sentient cottage overrun with woodland creatures, unhinged cottagecore, a secret library, a very prickly hedgehog familiar, goblins, dancing mops, helpful mushrooms, unwanted matchmaking, and a looming threat to the magical forest which faces destruction by midnight on Halloween. Will Eudora stop being a lazy brat and save herself and the magical forest? It's unlikely. But stranger things have happened. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
At the dawn of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz, a boy is born with milky skin and blond hair. His father, captivated by pseudo-histories about the Aryan origins of Iranians, takes this as a divine sign and names him Bamdaad, meaning “given by the light.” As he grows up, Bamdaad absorbs his father’s conviction that he is inherently superior to others. This belief draws him perverse popularity, but he also finds himself threatened by state police. When he leaves to study history at the University of Tehran, he meets Jason, an Iranian-American PhD student who has returned to Iran with grandiose fantasies of restoring the country’s Aryan past. When a politicized attack on the university dormitories leads Bamdaad to a shocking act of murder, he grows increasingly dependent on Jason, his only friend. Jason’s Americanized notions of white supremacy first lead him to protect Bamdaad, but those very beliefs rapidly warp, exposing Bamdaad to even greater Peril. Loosely based on Crime and Punishment, Amir Ahmadi Arian’s SUPREMACY is a literary psychological thriller that blends the aching beauty of Hisham Matar’s My Friends with an exploration of the connection between crime and childhood trauma that calls to mind Dennis Lehane’s Mystic River. Booklist praises Arian’s English language debut as “excel[ling] in its own right for its sheer literary and moral brilliance.” He is the author of a forthcoming novel for teen readers, and Supremacy marks his return to adult literature. (Please note, this project is represented by Jim McCarthy.)
Award-winning playwright Anita Sullivan’s debut is a warped horror novel that calls to mind the labyrinths of Piranesi and the fraying reality of Leave the World Behind. A site-specific theatre company is devising a show inspired by Minotaur myths, in a derelict warehouse. They rent a building that was created in the 1890’s by ropemaker Jame Wright and which will provide the location and inspiration for their piece. Typically, the length of a ship's rope is limited by the length of building it's made in, but James used his fortune, will, and a spirit guide to create a ropewalk that broke the rules of space to weave impossibly long ropes. The company crosses a threshold into a space that can’t actually exist: a huge hall and strange rooms with artifacts and stories going back generations. It could be a brilliant performance space, but they see evidence of past lost travelers. There are creative and sexual tensions; their director is unstable; everyone has secrets; and the building is feeding off it all. Walls move, strings get cut, and the company discovers that they are trapped inside. As time twists, people transform: vanity, hubris, and animal instincts rise. Rations run low. People die. The potential theater piece and the lives of its players are held together by the rational stage manager who records everything and is determined to keep everyone safe. Blending past and present, reality and something far more slippery, ROPEWALK HOUSE is a mind-bending locked-door thriller where the walls keep moving and the past consumes the present. (Please note, this project is represented by Jim McCarthy.)
Botanist Evelyn Bauer has cultivated a quiet life among the plants she loves. She’s running her own lab at Tufts University, negotiating a mostly positive relationship with her widowed mother and mercurial sister, managing her OCD and—despite her queasiness around corpses—moonlighting as a forensic botanist. Driven by twin passions for mystery fiction and science fact, she’s exposed drownings through traces of algae, uncovered hidden corpses with the help of raspberry vines, and even helped convict a child murderer using microscopic pumpkin pollen. Now, someone is killing people close to her and scattering botanical clues across the wealthy Berkshire countryside, including on the grounds of the gently decaying estate where she grew up. When her younger sister, Lily, vanishes, Evelyn’s carefully ordered world is shattered. With the help of her friend, detective Jack Kaiser, Evelyn digs into Lily’s shadowed life, sown with secrets dark enough to flower into violence. When Jack begins to question the sisters’ toxic history, Evelyn’s OCD and paranoia send her spiraling. As the deaths mount, Evelyn faces a terrifying question: is Lily a victim…or the killer? With nods to golden-age mysteries and forensic crime fiction, THE LOCUST introduces a compelling new sleuth and a supporting cast of colorful and quirky experts. Kate Winkler Dawson is professor of journalism at UT Austin, a true crime historian and bestselling author. She is the creator of three hit podcasts on the Exactly Right network: Tenfold More Wicked, Wicked Words, and Buried Bones, which she co-hosts with Paul Holes. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)
Northern California’s Emerald Triangle is known for its lush coastal redwoods—and its illegal marijuana trade. Smack in the middle is quiet Crystal Bay, where Ivy Barnett waitresses at the diner, dreams of opening a boutique hotel, and navigates complicated feelings with her best friend, logger Wes Tate. When a body turns up in the woods, Wes—and everyone else—suspects Bodhi Ambrose, the hotshot green rusher who threatens the gentle livelihood of the local growers. Ivy’s worried about her brother, who works for Bodhi, but when she finally meets Bodhi himself, he’s nothing like the rumors: he's intelligent and kind, plus he has a solid alibi for the night of the murder. To Wes's dismay, Ivy falls for Bodhi, diving headfirst into his unruly world. When a competing grower attacks Ivy to get at Bodhi, Wes does the unthinkable to protect her. Ivy realizes that she’s caught between two desperate men—and that danger lurks where she never suspected it, even in this small town she knows so well. Moving at breakneck pace between Ivy, Wes, and Bodhi’s narration, EVERGREEN by Robin Wilkey Gregory is a Greek tragedy in lumberjack boots, exploring class dynamics, the complicated power of love, and the damage of America's War on Drugs. Gregory is a Pushcart Prize nominee and former journalist covering marijuana legislation. In EVERGREEN she brings insightful prose and masterful plotting steeped in a sense of place for fans of Charlotte McConaghy and Ash Davidson. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)
Audra Campbell is a flailing novelist, struggling with the downfall of her writing ambitions and with her lifelong yearning for a man who’s never wanted her as more than a friend. Broke, she takes a copywriting job at an eclectic parfumerie, crafting prose to customers who come in seeking transformation through fragrance. There, she stumbles upon the perfumer’s secret side project: bottling the essence of powerful women’s ovulation to help middle-aged women who feel mediocre be chosen in whatever way they dream of. Unable to resist, Audra accepts her own custom-chosen fragrance, and is soon basking in success on all fronts, including an editor begging for her manuscript and a weekend of romantic passion with the man she’s always loved. But when the perfume’s effects turn more complicated, leading to the greatest betrayal she’s ever experienced, Audra is forced to face realities she’s been ignoring. Now, more than her career is at stake as she tries to fight her way back to the top, hang on to her most important relationships, and embrace what it truly means to be chosen by herself—for real, not by magic or by fantasy. Exhilaratingly honest and lightly speculative, CHOSEN by Tiffany Clarke Harrison is a daring, gorgeous novel for fans of Rachel Khong and Deesha Philyaw. Harrison’s celebrated debut Blue Hour was a Barack Obama 2023 Summer Reading selection, Vulture Best Book of the Year, and winner of the Clara Johnson Award, among other recognitions. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)
Mia Rodrigues was twelve when she learned the right shade of foundation could make her Brazilian mother's bruises disappear. Together they dreamed of creating their own make-up line, but at thirty, Mia’s scraping by as a make-up artist in 1977 Los Angeles, dream buried the day her mother died. Then she gets her big break: doing make-up for Sara Collins, chaotic lead singer for the Velvet Sinners, the biggest—and messiest—band in America. As they go on tour, Mia bonds with Sara and at the same time stumbles into romance with guitarist Taylor Pierce, an Iranian immigrant who erased his roots to survive in America—and Sara’s ex. Their all-consuming love affair threatens both Mia’s friendship with Sara and the job that was reopening doors to her dream as Mia declines new opportunities to stay on tour, convincing herself Taylor’s love is the safest bet. But tenderness slowly curdles into control, and Mia realizes she’s carrying more than her mother’s inspiration past the grave. Reclaiming herself—and her friendship with Sara—will mean rediscovering her ambition and reimagining what she really wants her life to be. Captivating, fierce, and stunningly written, THE VELVET SINNERS by Ella Torres is as much about the power of women’s friendship as it is about 1970s rock’n’roll—an exhilarating debut for fans of The Favorites and Malibu Rising. Ella Torres is a Brazilian writer and translator finishing an MFA in Fiction at The New School whose work has appeared in Broad Ripple Review, Literally Stories, and elsewhere. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)
A delightfully metafictional speculative novel, A MOUSE IN THE FOURTH WALL by Ames Steiger blends a queer love story with a gonzo premise. Stanley Fring, a low-level office employee at a data-harvesting AI company, is haunted by the feeling that he’s being watched. So it’s both unnerving and strangely validating when a man named Wade Wall summons Stanley to his eerie office and informs him that Stanley is the protagonist of a dystopian novel, and his burgeoning awareness of eyes on him means he’s sensing the readers. Wade, an immortal entity cursed to travel between stories, needs permission to “reset” Stanely—causing him to forget both Wade and his perception of the readers—to prevent a cataclysmic breakdown of his narrative. Stanley is skeptical of Wade’s claims, to say the least. He should just report Wade to HR, but he’s lonely enough—and charmed enough by Wade’s peculiar earnestness—that he plays along. Wade warns, though, that getting too close is dangerous. Wade is here to help Stanley find and follow his preordained narrative path. Their relationship cannot progress beyond that—not without risking disaster. Or maybe Wade, like Stanley, is afraid of emotional intimacy. One night, Stanley calls Wade's bluff and kisses him. And reality begins to mutate. Perfect for fans of The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer and There Is No Antimemetics Division by qntm, A MOUSE IN THE FOURTH WALL will explode readers’ expectations, pushing narrative boundaries as Stanley breaks out of his own story and fights to survive the consequences. (Please note, this project is represented by Michaela Whatnall.)
A trans writer finds themself swept back into a cycle of obsession with the person who captivated and then destroyed them as a teen in THE OTHER EMMA by Cole Wolf. This debut upmarket contemporary examines the romantic and sexual relationships that shape us and the cost of finding your identity through the vessel of another person. During Whitman High's production of Twelfth Night, Emma the stage manager watches Emma the actor with longing. The Other Emma has everything she doesn't: a smile that charms everyone, a house that screams generational wealth, and a mom who isn't a religious freak. Emma becomes obsessed, but she can't figure out if she wants to be with the Other Emma or just be the Other Emma. She resorts to increasingly dramatic measures to get the Other Emma to notice her, until the Other Emma makes a choice on prom night that irreversibly changes the course of their futures. Fifteen years and two gender transitions later, their paths cross again when Cal (the stage manager) finds themself hired as a speechwriter for EJ (the actor), who is the first trans person to run for mayor in their hometown. This time around, Cal is determined to rewrite the story of the two Emmas, one where Cal wins EJ at the end. With a widely publicized election looming, tension between the two escalates, threatening EJ's marriage, the campaign, and both of their belonging in the trans community. THE OTHER EMMA is propulsive and psychologically gripping, perfect for fans of Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters and Sunburn by Chloe Michelle Howarth. (Please note, this project is represented by Michaela Whatnall.)
Two-time Fulbright Fellow and Yaddo and MacDowell Fellow Jacob Newberry’s THE MADNESS, a debut novel set in a near-future Paris at the outbreak of a contagious dementia that only infects the young. Against the backdrop of a global energy crisis and a Europe in terminal decline, this literary horror follows Danny Alvarez, a 60-year-old American who begins seeing strange symptoms in people after the funeral of a teenager. At lunch, the waiter at a cafe pours wine in his soup, then loses the ability to walk. That night at a concert, the prodigy on stage forgets how to play, and when he stands from the piano, he’s lost the ability to speak. Then, walking home by the water, Danny’s younger husband talks in a jumble and forgets the name of a close friend—just as a riverboat crashes into an embankment and tosses a dozen tourists into the Seine. A contagious outbreak is beginning. Everyone Danny’s age is immune, but soon the dementia has infected all the young in Paris, and Danny must decide if he can face the end of the French Republic, or journey out of the city on an odyssey that will take him home to Mississippi, where his mother may be waiting. This explosive speculative debut blends The Children of Men by P.D. James with the atmospheric intensity of the Deep South in Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones. Newberry’s catastrophic vision of a future where everyone of reproductive age is infected is perfect for fans of Station Eleven. (Please note, this project is represented by René Kooiker.)
March Madness: the biggest sports betting event in America. All eyes are on Mia Miller, the Bryce University basketball star and a sure bet for #1 WNBA draft pick. She's used to fame and shrugs off the online harassment that comes with it. She even dismisses evidence of a stalker... until her teammate, Raya, finds her drugged and bound on her hotel room balcony on the morning of the National Championship game. In her hospital bed, Mia stares down the prospect of missing the March Madness final. Then, during the championship game, live on national TV, two of Mia’s teammates collapse on the court within minutes of each other. The attack on Mia may be part of a sabotage campaign against the entire Bryce team. With the fast-approaching WNBA draft at stake, OVER/UNDER follows Mia, Raya, and athletic director Melissa King as they navigate a storm of media attention, federal investigators, and conspiracy theories—only to find a suspect much closer to home. Tackling the dark side of the gambling boom in a sport where female athletes face three times as much harassment as their male counterparts, OVER/UNDER pairs the athletic comeback drama of Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid with the basketball suspense of Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar series. Katie Urban, a D1 basketball alumna and former Netflix publicist, delivers unmistakable authenticity in her debut thriller set in the world of women's basketball—one of the country's fastest-growing sports franchises. (Please note, this project is represented by René Kooiker.)
NON-FICTION
Five-time Grammy Award winner and recipient of the 2023 Academy of Country Music Honors Poet’s Award, Mary Chapin Carpenter believes that a creative life shouldn’t have to conform to a 9-to-5 existence with mandatory retirement at 65. Since releasing her first album in 1987, she has garnered the respect of multiple generations of her songwriting peers, earning herself a place as one of twenty-two women in the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Her most recent album, 2021’s One Night Lonely, received a Grammy nod exactly thirty years after her very first nomination. Her as-yet-untitled “mash up” memoir contains essays on creativity and the shape of a life that supports the muse, supplemented by lyrics, sheet music and photographs from her nearly forty-year career in music. Looking back over this long stretch of time, Carpenter reflects upon victories, inevitable failures, and the wisdom that accompanies the passages of an artistic life. Time, the importance of place, and the illumination of memory all show up at the kitchen table where she wrote so many songs, and where now she is also writing this book, welcoming a different kind of muse. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
AMERICAN CRISIS: THE TIES THAT BIND THESE UNITED STATES tells the story of America’s survival from independence to the modern era. Critically acclaimed, Edgar-nominated author Michael Wolraich delivers fast-paced narrative history featuring iconic figures and pivotal events that changed the country. Each chapter recounts a moment of national crisis, revealing how Americans overcame adversity to emerge stronger and closer to our founding ideals. The title pays homage to Thomas Paine’s “American Crisis” pamphlets, which rallied the squabbling colonies during the darkest days of the Revolution by promoting a national identity rooted in shared values: freedom, tolerance, equality, and democracy. Wolraich explores the ways that American leaders and visionaries have drawn on these ideals to meet the challenges of each era, sustaining the nation through war, depression, environmental degradation, and social strife for 250 years. To overcome our current political crisis, he argues, we must return to our core values and build on them to reshape our national identity and recover our sense of purpose in the 21st century. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
An automotive revolution was supposed to be in full swing by now; 2025 should have been the year of the electric car. Instead, lackluster sales and waning enthusiasm have led to automakers pulling back on their electric vehicle bets, reintroducing gas engines onto platforms that were thought to have moved beyond them. What happened? In FALSE START, Washington Post reporter and author of Hubris Maximus: The Shattering of Elon Musk Faiz Siddiqui will demonstrate how automakers' unprecedented retreat wasn't a coincidence or a product of circumstances outside their control. Instead, policy changes, leadership failures, institutional arrogance, detachment from consumer tastes, and yes, Elon Musk's shifting interests decelerated the West's EV ambitions against the backdrop of a rising China. Now, on one side of the U.S. border, Chinese-built EVs are landing in front of quality- and cost-conscious buyers, a symptom of the Trump trade war and legacy automakers' struggle to keep up. Americans are increasingly demanding to own something that none of the traditional automakers can offer. FALSE START explores how the EV push of the 2020s went so wrong and what can be done to get the clean energy revolution back on track. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
Karen Thorne has been a practicing astrologer for forty years and was the vice president of the National Center for Geocosmic Research in Boston during the ‘80s and ‘90s. With a clientele packed with celebrities and impact makers, she guides individuals to understand who they really are and what their mission is. Now, in her as-yet-untitled memoir, she reveals to a wide audience the importance of knowing your truth and how it helps you navigate the peaks and valleys of your life. Her thesis is simple: We are born in our truth, but if we experience dysfunction in our early environment, then we will create behavior patterns in order to survive the dysfunction. Over time, these patterns create a false personality which people bring into their adult relationships, and if you are not acting your truth in relationships, they don't work. The astrological birth chart shows what a person's truth is, and by helping us emulate our natural truths, Thorne shows how things fall into place and how we can find success. She explains how we can enter into alignment with our cosmic DNA and achieve what so many are searching for: a sense of peace and wellbeing. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
TIME STOPPED COLD is New York Magazine writer David Freedlander's social and cultural history of New York at the turn of the last century, capturing the city on the cusp of becoming the New York we know today, a time when technology, media, television, art and high-finance were mixing to create a golden age, before 9/11 and the horrors that followed, before the financial crash and before the Internetization of everything, a place where crime was plunging, the fear of terrorism was distant thunder, a city that young people flocked to and that saw its charms and excesses broadcast across the country and the globe. Embedded in this narrative, however, is another story: one of American politics and the convulsive changes that the nation has undergone over the last quarter-century. As a veteran political journalist, Freedlander has observed how the story of our time is found in the makeup of the coalitions of our two major political parties, with better educated and wealthier voters moving en masse not just into the Democratic Party, but becoming the liberal vanguard of the Democratic Party. This is a story that has never been properly told, and it is one Freedlander traces back to that time in late ‘90s and early ‘00s New York City, where the first wave of this demographic transformation was altering New York's politics, and which then broadcast a new set of mores, a new way of being, out to the rest of the nation. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
Adopted in the 1980s by white, vegan, anti-vaxxer, classical musicians, DON’T STAND TOO CLOSE TO THE MICROWAVE is award-winning author Mariama J. Lockington’s darkly funny memoir exploring family separation, childhood neglect and abuse, love, and healing. A poet at heart, Lockington takes readers on a lyrical journey through the ups and downs of her childhood and the pervasive grief of feeling as if she had been dropped onto the wrong planet. A girl who loved rules and routines, Lockington grew up among a band of eccentric, go-with-the-flow family members always vying for the spotlight. The eldest of four siblings—some adopted some not—Lockington could be found quietly reading the dictionary or writing in her diary wondering, Who are the adults here? Is this safe? Why do I feel so lonely? In the vein of Jeannette Wall’s The Glass Castle and Tara Westover’s, Educated, Lockington writes with unflinching honesty about the dreams and heartaches of both sets of her parents, her struggle to receive consistent education and medical care, the often outrageous dietary restrictions imposed upon her and her siblings, and the lasting impacts of racism and unhealed trauma on a family system. If you’re looking for a fairytale, rags-to-riches, feel-good adoption story— this ain’t it. This is a messy account of a queer, Black woman clawing herself a path to belonging and home and a story of resilience and reinvention, where the in-betweens, the half-truths, and the re-memories matter just as much as the facts. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
Cold cases are an American obsession. THE COLD CASE SECRET: HOW THE INVESTIGATIONS THAT CAPTURED AMERICA’S HEART RUIN INNOCENT LIVES reveals the devastating truth about what happens when the quest for delayed justice goes wrong. True crime media has popularized the image of the heroic cold case detective finally cracking an unsolved homicide. Yet, beneath the satisfying plotlines lies a chilling reality: While many convictions bring justice, cold cases are breeding grounds for the manipulation of facts and misunderstandings that lead to wrongful convictions. Author Joshua Sharpe, an investigative journalist whose reporting has helped two innocent people go free, takes readers inside the lives of unforgettable individuals caught up in a law enforcement nightmare. Take great grandmother Annette, for instance, who was cleared in a 1992 murder only to be convicted twenty-six years later based on a dubious childhood memory. Sharpe weaves original reporting with intimate interviews to expose how police tactics ensnare innocent people—disproportionately Black, rural, and living in poverty. THE COLD CASE SECRET, an urgent narrative tour-de-force, argues for systemic reform to ensure cold case convictions are factual and to prevent the hundreds of thousands of unsolved homicides in the U.S. from trapping more innocent people in prison. True crime fans and anyone interested in criminal justice will find Sharpe’s propulsive storytelling riveting. If you think America loves cold cases, wait until they meet these cold cases gone wrong. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
American lawmakers and courts created the open internet by limiting the government’s control of online speech. In the internet’s earliest days, courts established robust First Amendment protections, allowing people to speak their minds freely and often anonymously without fear of prosecution or lawsuit. And Congress passed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which immunizes online platforms from liability for users’ posts and allowed the creation of trillion-dollar companies centered on user content. These legal protections set the stage for a quarter century of an open and freewheeling internet. But in recent years, as public opinion turned on “Big Tech” and policymakers became concerned about online harm to children and adults, judges and legislators have cracked down on online speech. In recent verdicts, courts have sharply curtailed Section 230. State legislatures are scrambling to pass laws that require people to provide identifying information to access social media. The Supreme Court approved a law requiring TikTok to be sold or shut down. America’s once-laissez faire approach to the internet is rapidly shifting, along with the openness that defined the internet’s first quarter century. In KILLING THE INTERNET, law professor Jeff Kosseff explores how legislative and judicial techlash is quickly changing the face of the internet, and proposes solutions to avoid further erosion. (Please note, this project is represented by Jane Dystel.)
The great promise of technology was ease, a frictionless world. We are now living in the aftermath of that great smoothing. Across work, creativity, relationships, and spirituality, friction has been engineered out of our lives in the name of speed and scale. Algorithms decide what we watch. Delivery apps tell us what to eat. Gmail writes responses to our grandmothers. And yet, paradoxically, we have never been more exhausted, more anxious, or more disconnected from meaning. Everything functions. Nothing feels. We were promised ease, but instead we’ve gotten erasure. In this piercing, philosophical, and deeply practical manifesto, Jason Alan Snyder, technologist, inventor, and moral architect, offers a new ethical framework for life inside automated systems. This is not a book about technology as an external force. It is a book about what happens inside us when the world is optimized beyond recognition, when choice becomes suggestion, memory becomes archive, effort becomes inefficiency, and identity becomes data. It is not anti-technology. It is pro-human. HUMAN AFTER FRICTION argues that the crisis of our time isn’t artificial intelligence replacing humans, it’s optimization replacing authorship, and shows readers—through “Friction Practices” at the end of each chapter—how to design friction back into their lives, work, and systems before meaning disappears entirely. (Please note, this project is represented by Michael Bourret.)
Although the Academy Awards have existed for nearly a century, awards season as we know it today has not. Oscar campaigns have grown longer and more intense as the decades have worn on, and now endure all year, consuming the press and capturing the public interest. In FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: INSIDE HOLLYWOOD’S OBSESSIVE RACE FOR THE OSCARS, journalist and author Emily Zemler recounts the birth and evolution of Hollywood’s all-important awards season, which culminates each year in a glamorous events and the handing out of Oscars. But to get there, filmmakers and talent must traverse an obstacle course of film festivals, events, other awards shows, media appearances, and public scrutiny, along with scandal and drama. By breaking down the elements of an awards campaign, both historically and in present day, AWARDS SEASON answers the question: How do you win an Oscar? Drawing on exclusive interviews with filmmakers, actors, PR strategists, pundits, and studio executives, the book examines the evolution of the Oscars from an industry-only event to an annual scramble that lasts for months. It traces the early awards campaigns, by filmmakers like Frank Capra, to the modern, much more aggressive “For Your Consideration” strategy, which was shaped in part by disgraced executive Harvey Weinstein. Written by someone who has been reporting on these campaign elements for 20 years, this in-depth, insider look—timed for the 100th Academy Award broadcast in 2028—reveals why Hollywood will do anything to win an Oscar. (Please note, this project is represented by Michael Bourret.)
At first glance, South Berwick, Maine, and Tuskegee, Alabama, are worlds apart. South Berwick is 94% white. Tuskegee is 95% Black. But the two towns have embraced each other as “sister cities,” a project birthed from a quiet but courageous belief: that healing starts when people decide to look beyond the surface and see a fellow citizen co-existing with more similarities than differences. For nearly ten years, people from both communities have shown up for one another with open hearts, and kitchens. They've gathered and shared meals that stretched long past mealtime and listened to stories—some joyful, some heavy, all real. And somewhere in those moments—in the passing of a plate, the telling of a memory, the simple act of breaking bread—something has shifted. Strangers have become friends. Distance has softened into close bonds. One meal. One conversation. One story at a time. From this shared journey comes COLOR US CONNECTED: A FEAST OF ROOTS AND RECIPES—a gathering place in book form. A collection of recipes, yes, as diverse as the cultures themselves, but also of voices, histories, and the tender architecture of lived experience. James Beard award-winning food journalist Kathy Gunst from South Berwick teams up with Tuskegee journalist Karin Hopkins to share those stories, and recipes like Fried Chicken, Rhubarb-Ginger BBQ Sauce, Mom’s Pound Cake, Egg Custard Pie, and Southern Pecan Pie. Because food, in its simplest form, is love made edible. And while our histories may differ, our humanity does not. (Please note, this project is represented by Stacey Glick.)
In quiet rooms around the world, inside aging cabinets and vaults, lie millions of pressed plant, fungi and algae specimens, the oldest dating back hundreds of years. These botanical collections, called herbaria, are often overlooked. Yet an herbarium is like a library; it provides foundational resources that support our understanding of the natural world and holds clues to the future of life on Earth. At a time when two in five plant species face extinction and the planet is rapidly changing, the herbaria serve as time machines and treasure maps. They tell us which plants lived where and when, helping scientists track climate change, identify new medicines, and restore ecosystems like mangroves and prairies. But many herbaria are being closed, digitized without context, or simply forgotten. PRESSED FOR TIME uncovers the hidden world of botanical collections through immersive storytelling, on-the-ground reporting, and deep research. From Colombia’s remote cloud forests to Kew Gardens in London, from the ruins of war to the frontlines of conservation, and from orphaned collections to an Aegean Island, this book reveals how these silent archives connect science, culture, and memory. It’s a non-fiction adventure book about plants but also about people, resilience, and the questions we ask about what’s worth saving. Lisa Palmer is a Journalist-in-Residence and Senior Research Scholar in science communication at IIASA. She writes about science, the environment, agriculture, and sustainability for The Guardian, The New Republic, Nature, Yale e360, Slate, The New York Times, Scientific American, and many others. She served as National Geographic visiting professor of science communication at the George Washington University, as a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., and at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)
At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a Boston housewife played a pivotal role in the birth of American psychology. Leonora Piper was the most successful psychic medium of her day, and after rival psychologists William James and G. Stanley Hall made repeated visits to her séance table, they came to very different views of her mediumship. Using newly uncovered material, WHITE CROWS: SPIRITUALISM, WOMEN’S LIVES, AND THE BIRTH OF AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY reveals how three women—Piper, the architect Theodate Pope Riddle, and Amy Tanner, the brilliant psychologist and skeptic—helped steer the course of a field struggling to become a science. WHITE CROWS is a story of women striving to achieve professional success in a world bent against them, and the unacknowledged role spiritualism played in the development of the new field. The group biography unfolds against the backdrop of the American Civil War, the Chicago Columbian Exhibition of 1893, Sigmund Freud’s only trip to the United States in 1909, and the sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915. Along the way, readers encounter Henry James, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Cassatt, Harry Houdini, Carl Jung, and social reformer Jane Addams, all of whom help to cast history in a new light. Author Stuart Vyse is a psychologist, award-winning science writer, and professor; his work has appeared in the Atlantic, Time, the Observer, and Tablet. He is a contributing editor of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, where he writes the Behavior & Belief column. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)
Auctioneer and appraiser Josh Levine has spent over 25 years pulling hidden fortunes from American homes. In DON’T THROW THAT AWAY: 53 THINGS IN YOUR HOUSE THAT ARE WORTH MORE THAN YOU THINK AND HOW TO STOP GIVING THEM AWAY, Levine reveals the common household items that most families own that are actually worth serious money yet are often thrown away, donated, or sold for pennies. DON'T THROW THAT AWAY is the book you read before the donation truck arrives: part stories, part consumer-protection guide, part treasure map, and the answer to the question every American eventually asks: "Wait… is this actually worth something?" Right now, 75 million Baby Boomer households are in various stages of downsizing, representing an estimated $78.1 trillion in assets–the largest intergenerational wealth transfer in American history. It’s happening in garages, attics, and storage units, not boardrooms. Meanwhile, the resale market has exploded: Vinyl records are a $50 billion industry. Sealed vintage Lego sets outperform the S&P 500. Gen Z is driving a Walkman revival, pushing prices up 400% in three years. Online platforms have made it possible for anyone to sell anything to a global market from their kitchen table–the infrastructure for ordinary people to reclaim this hidden value has never been better. What's missing is the knowledge–which is exactly what this book delivers as a funny, practical, no-BS guide from someone who's spent decades finding money that families didn't know they had. (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)
Leslie Mancillas’s mother Linda decided that the only way to escape her guilt and despair over her addictions and physical abuse of her daughters was to kill herself. But she wasn’t going down with bad hair, and so she headed to the salon one last time. There she met a charismatic woman who taught her a mantra, bringing her the first peace she’d felt in a decade since her husband ran off. Soon after she began chanting, Linda bet her eldest daughter, Leslie, that if she would practice with her for 100 days, her life would improve. Now Leslie tells the story of her family’s road to recovery and forgiveness in THE HUNDRED-DAY BET: HOW A 6-SYLLABLE BUDDHIST CHANT KEPT MY BIPOLAR MOM FROM KILLING US AND LED OUR FAMILY TO HEAL. Jean Hegland, author of Into the Forest, writes, “Fascinating, harrowing, and inspiring. Especially in these unsettling times, it is a real gift.” Shortly before Linda died, she apologized to Leslie and her two sisters and revealed that her own parents had emotionally and physically mistreated her. This apology and their continuing Buddhist practice helped the daughters break the chain of multigenerational abuse and chronic illness to protect their own children. Ultimately redemptive, THE HUNDRED-DAY BET gives a message of hope and healing for survivors of intergenerational trauma. A Huffington Post excerpt received over 700,000 views, and Business Insider featured three excerpts, demonstrating the wide appeal of Mancillas’s story. (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)
Reproductive healthcare is no longer a niche concern, but the defining civil rights issue of this generation. SHACKLED: A DOCTOR'S FIGHT FOR WOMEN'S LIVES IN A SYSTEM BUILT TO FAIL is a searing narrative exposing the invisible architects of American women's health crisis. In the vein of bestsellers Invisible Women and All in Her Head, ten patients’ stories—pregnant and not pregnant, in the clinic and the operating room, in rural Oregon and an urban refugee clinic—reveal in gripping detail that the most dangerous threat to American women’s health isn't a disease. It's a policy. A practicing OB-GYN, award-winning research scientist funded by the NIH, and policy advocate who helped pass Oregon’s Reproductive Health Equity Act, Maria Isabel Rodriguez, MD, MPH, brings us inside each patient’s life, the system that produced her crisis (preventing physicians from providing proper care), and how to fix it. From a hemorrhaging woman transferred out of a Catholic hospital to a pregnant Texas librarian who crossed state lines for psychiatric care, SHACKLED is more than a collection of medical tragedies; it is a cumulative argument demonstrating that American healthcare fails women not by accident but by design. Threats extend beyond lack of access to abortion to maternity deserts, chronic pain dismissal, mental health, and the systematic exclusion of women from clinical research. SHACKLED shines new light on where all of these failures converge: inside the exam room, where a doctor’s care begins and restrictions intrude. (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)
Currently, women and minorities own only 1.4% of the firms managing the country's $82 trillion of investments, and Michelle Connell, CFA is one of them. Born into education and privilege, her parents' divorce pushed Connell and her sister into poverty. Connell was put to work full-time at a McDonald's at 15 years old, when her mother was unable to hold a consistent job. While supporting her family, she tirelessly pursued the education and experience necessary for a job in finance. In her 25 years spent as an institutional investor, with an emphasis on technology, semiconductors and private equity, Connell has seen firsthand how Silicon Valley has made billionaires through technology stocks but left most of the population behind—especially women and minority men. In THE WALL STREET COWGIRL, Connell marries personal stories from Wall Street, like a meeting with Steve Jobs for Pixar’s IPO, with advice on how to invest confidently and build lasting wealth. Connell’s goal is to help the marginalized find financial stability and prosperity during this period of opportunity created by AI and technology. Even if readers don't like finance, they will find THE WALL STREET COWGIRL engaging and entertaining. Some of Connell’s stories will make readers laugh, others will bring them to tears. An adjunct professor and regular contributor to Schwab Network, Yahoo! Finance, BNN Bloomberg, and more, Connell founded Portia Capital Management with an emphasis on investment management for charities, foundations, and individuals. (Please note, this project is represented by Gracie Freeman Lifschutz.)
Rights Round Up
AUGUST LANE by Regina Black was optioned by Why Not You. THE BRIARS by Sarah Crouch was optioned by CBS/Defiant by Nature. FALLEN TOO FAR, NEVER TOO FAR, and FOREVER TOO FAR by Abbi Glines was optioned by Crazy Maple/Reel Short. FIVE BROTHERS by Penelope Douglas was optioned by BellMedia.
WORST CASE SCENARIO by Ray Stoeve went to Recorded Books for World English audio rights.
CHOKEPOINT by Devon Alexandra went to Elliott & Thompson for UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights. THE NOCEBO EFFECT by Michael H. Bernstein, Charlotte Blease, Cosima Locher, and Walter A. Brown went to China Times Publishing for Complex Chinese rights. Two unbtitled YA novels by Erik J. Brown went to Hachette Children’s for UK and Commonwealth rights. THE BRIGHT YEARS by Sarah Damoff went to HarperCollins Brasil, HarperCollins Germany, Lithuanian Writers’ Union, and Veseli četvrtak for Serbian rights. TRYST SIX VENOM, HIDEAWAY, KILL SWITCH, NIGHTFALL, CONCLAVE, and FIRE NIGHT by Penelope Douglas went to Konyvmolykepzo for Hungarian rights. CREDENCE and BIRTHDAY GIRL went to Lizzie Editis for French audio rights. QUIET ONES went to Newton Compton for Italian rights. EYE FOR AN I by Kim Holden went to Filia for Polish rights. WOMAN DOWN by Colleen Hoover went to Living for Albanian rights, Al Rewaq for Arabic rights, IBIS for Bulgarian rights, Ikar for Slovakian rights, RM Publishing for Ukranian rights, Naklada Neptun for Croatian rights, Pegasus for Estonian rights, Konyvmolykepzo for Hungarian rights, Otwarte for Polish rights, and Euromedia for Czech rights. REMINDERS OF HIM went to Bokabeitan for Icelandic rights. MAYBE NOW went to Ikar for Slovakian rights. FINDING PERFECT went to Planeta for Spanish rights. HEART BONES and LAYLA went to Otwarte for Polish rights. VERITY went to Euromedia for Czech audio rights. VERITY, REGRETTING YOU, and MAYBE NOW went to Zomer & Keuning for Dutch rights. THE LEGEND OF THE NINE-TAILED FOX by Katrina Kwan went to Knigolove for Ukranian rights. THE STUNNING GUNNINGS by Devoney Looser went to Manchester University Press for UK rights. WOMEN OF THE GREEN DRAGON TAVERN by Tilar J. Mazzeo went to Elliott & Thompson for UK & Commonwealth rights. 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG PEOPLE DON’T DO by Amy Morin went to AcePremier for Malaysian rights. IN MY HOCKEY ERA by Kendall Ryan went to Bonnier for Norwegian rights. DRAWN TOGETHER by Juliana Smith went to LYX for German rights. SAVE THE CAT! GOES TO THE INDIES by Salva Rubio (Based on the Books by Blake Snyder) and SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK by Blake Snyder went to Jesour for Arabic rights. THE ELSEWHERE EXPRESS by Samantha Sotto Yambao went to Bragelonne for French rights, The Bookman Group for Korean rights, Arkadas for Turkish rights, and Arab Cultural Center for Arabic rights. WATER MOON went to Veseli četvrtak for Serbian rights, Lotus for Croatian rights, and Vietnam AZ Communication and Culture Company for Vietnamese rights. BE WITH ME by Samantha Young went to Fokus for Croatian rights. ONLY YOU went to Orange Books for Bulgarian rights. A ROYAL MILE and HART STREET LANE went to Purple Book for Polish rights. THE WALL OF WINNIPEG AND ME by Mariana Zapata went to LYX/Bastei for German rights.
RECENT SALES
LONGHAND by Eric Nuzum went to Holt in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.
ECHOES ACROSS THE WATER by Livia Blackburne to Nancy Paulsen Books in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
HE’S JUST SOME GUY by Preeti Chhibber went to Kokila Books in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.
THE CURIOUS VEGETARIAN COOKBOOK by Anisha Ramakrishna went to Rizzoli in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.
A new untitled novel by Tayari Jones went to Knopf in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.
THE 99TH STREET SCHOOL by Joy McCullough and Hannah V. Sawyerr went to Abrams in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
THE TRIAL PROVIDES by Neena Viel went to St. Martin’s Press in a World English rights deal by Sharon Pelletier.
NO ONE ELSE IN HERE by Cindy R.X. He went to Union Square in a World English rights deal by Michael Bourret.
BOY IN THE WIND and UNTITLED BOOK #2 by Laura Barrow went to Lake Union in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.
CHARM VALLEY by Jes Battis went to ECW in a US and Canadian English and French rights deal by Lauren Abramo.
THE ONLY by MS Duirham went to Holt Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
UNREAL by Marlynn Wei went to MIT Press in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.
LIFTOFF: THE MERCURY SEVEN ASTRONAUTS AND THE NAZI ROCKET THAT TOOK THEM TO SPACE by Rebecca Barone went to Henry Holt Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.
MOM LOVES BAKING by Lisa Ode went to Harvard Common Press in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.
SAINT KAYLEIGH by Mar Romasco Moore went to Viking Children’s in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
TECHNOBABY by Daphne Oluwaseun Martschenko went to Princeton University Press in a World, all languages rights deal by Jessica Papin.
SOMETHING INSIDE ME KNOWS by Malinda Lo went to Dutton Books in a North American rights deal by Michael Bourret.
THE SEASON OF WILD POPPIES by Amir Ahmadi Arian went to Holt Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
OUR WHOLE LIVES BEHIND US by Brett Ryland went to Sourcebooks in a World English deal by Jane Dystel.
TWICE GONE by Laurie L. Dove went to University Press of Kansas/Plainspoken in a North American rights deal by Sharon Pelletier.
WE COULD BE ANYONE by Anna-Marie McLemore went to Feiwel & Friends in a North American rights deal by Michael Bourret.
CONSIDERING THE LOBSTER by Nicole Melleby went to Greenwillow in a North American rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
WHY ARE YOU HERE? by Mark Maynard went to Matt Holt Books in a World English rights deal by Stacey Glick.
THE REAL HOUSEWIVES OF HOWLING LANE by Lisa Kroger went to Blackstone Publishing in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.
UNDERWATER GENIUS: THE SURPRISING NEW SCIENCE OF AQUATIC INTELLIGENCE by Alex Schnell went to Atria in a World rights deal by Leslie Meredith.
BEFORE ROSA PARKS: 15 BLACK PROTESTS THAT FUELED THE RISE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT by Kerri K. Greenidge and Michael G. Long went to Beacon Press in a World English deal by John Rudolph.
SPEAK UP, DARLA JEAN and UNTITLED BOOK #2 by Aminata Jaiteh went to Putnam Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
IT CAME FROM THE CREEK by Amy Sarig King went to Scholastic in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.
EARTH TO ESTELLE by Hannah V. Sawyer went to Abrams/Amulet in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
GRADUALLY, A SHOT WRANG OUT by Laura Reiley went to St. Martin’s Press in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.
CATTAIL by Haitao Xu went to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
TOMORROW’S WEATHER, ANYBODY’S GUESS by Patrick Dillon went to Brandeis University Press in a World Volume rights deal by Jane Dystel.
TABBY AND DIXIE by Shari Swanson went to Sleeping Bear Press in a World rights deal by John Rudolph.
DEATHLY BELOVED by Katrina Kwan went to Berkley in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.
SKIN UPON SKIN by Morgan Jerkins went to Harper in a North American rights deal by Sharon Pelletier.
THE ARRIVAL by Daniel Black went to Hanover Square in a World English deal by Jim McCarthy.
THE GIRL IN THE RED DRESS by Tilar J. Mazzeo went to St. Martin’s Press in a North American (CA, OM) rights deal by Stacey Glick.
WATCHING THE SKIES and an as-yet-untitled second book by John O’Connor went to Sourcebooks in a US & Territories, Canada and Philippines rights deal by Jane Dystel.
WILLOW CREEK NOVELLA SERIES by Juliana Smith went to Bloom Books in a North American rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.
AMERICAN SAFARIS: THE 25 BEST PLACES TO EXPERIENCE OUR ICONIC WILDLIFE by Scott Harris went to Timber Press in a World rights deal by Leslie Meredith.
THE 100 COOKIES DECK by Sarah Kieffer went to Chronicle Books in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.
IT ALL COMES DOWN TO THIS by Denise Williams went to Berkley in a World English rights deal by Sharon Pelletier.