Deals

Black Issues Book Review, Jan-Feb, 2005

FICTION

Melody Guy at Ballantine's One World bought two new novels by Travis Hunter. Hunter's agent is Elaine Koster.

HarperCollins/Amistad's Kellie Martin acquired world rights for The Vow by Denene Millner, Angela Burr-Murray and Mitzi Miller. Set in the Hollywood entertainment industry, The Vow revolves around three black women, best friends, who embark on a drama filled and often-moving search to find their perfect mates within one year. Millner is articles editor at Parenting magazine; Burt-Murray is executive editor at TeenPeople; and Mitzi Miller is associate editor at Jane. Victoria Sanders is the agent.

Martin also acquired the new novel from successful author Lolita Files. Set in the worlds of hip-hop, Hollywood and publishing, the story follows a best-selling author who is seduced into a fame hungry, newcomer's desperate desire to be on top of it all--at any cost. Elaine Koster is the agent.

Also at HarperCollins/Amistad, Stacey Barney signed David Dante Troutt's fiction debut, Brownstone Queen, about the rise and fall of three members of a Harlem investment club who discover a game far more lucrative than the stock market. The agent was Jessica Papin at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management.

In a four book deal (three novels and one novella) for more than $500,000, Kensington/DaFina's Karen Thomas contracted with Mary Monroe. Monroe's agent is Andrew Stuart.

For publication in November 2006, NAL's Kara Cesare acquired C. Kelly Robinson's The One That Got Away The agent is Elaine Koster.

Lorin Stein of Farrar. Straus & Giroux bought fiction by recent Iowa Writers Workshop graduate Asali Solomon. It's an untitled debut story collection, set mainly in 1980s Philadelphia, featuring middle-class black kids lost in the eternal abject quest to fit in. FSG also signed Disgruntled. a debut novel about a father and daughter descended from the black butler who burned down Frank Lloyd Wright's home Taliesin. The agent was Ellen Levine at Trident Media Group.

Beth de Guzman at Warner Books bought Karen E. Quinones Miller's Going for It, a sequel to Satin Doll, the self published success that launched her career.

FICTION: Paperback rights

Paperback rights to Toure's debut novel, Soul City (about a journalist sent to report on the mayoral race in the eponymous black urban utopia, where music, food, love, and style reign supreme) sold to Josh Kendall at Picador by Laura Quinn at Little, Brown and Company.

POETRY

Janet Silver and Michael Collier at Houghton Mifflin bought NEA, Guggenheim and Bunting fellow Natasha Trethewey's Native Guard, a volume of poetry grappling with the pull of history, both on a personal and a national level for a high five-figure deal. The agent is Rob McQuilkin at Lippincott McQuilkin & Co.

Many of the above deals were first reported by the Publishers' Marketplace e-letter "Lunch Weekly Deluxe."