News


There’s a new agency in Toon: The North L


WORDS Natasha Onwuemezi


ITERARY AGENTS MARK Stanton and Kevin Pocklington, formerly of Edin- burgh-based Jenny Brown Associ-


ates (JBA), are starting a new agency based in Newcastle called The North. They will be joined by literary agent Allan Guthrie and freelance editor Julie Fergusson, while Jenny Brown and Lucy Juckes are to remain at JBA. The decision to launch the agency was “largely geographical”, said Stanton, who is based in Corbridge, Northumberland. Naming the agency The North was a way of pointing out its “selling point”, he added. “When our industry is almost exclusively to be found in London [it’s a point of difference that] we’re not there, we are from the north— as many writers are.” Pocklington, who has specialised in non-


fiction to date, will seek a wider range of non- fiction submissions and to develop a fiction list, including accessible literary, YA and crime titles. Stanton is interested in crime and thrillers, as well as general fiction of “all


The first, entitled Four, will be a lead read- ing group title for Hodder next summer. At Frankfurt, The North’s key titles include Xavi, the autobiography of the ex-Barce- lona and Spain footballer; a Jerry Lee Lewis memoir entitled Redemption; and the story of Mark Beaumont’s recent world record- breaking cycle trip, Around the World in (Under) 80 Days.


sorts” and non-fiction projects, particularly in politics and science. Stanton has struck The North’s first deal with Hodder editorial director Kate Howard, selling world rights for two new novels by Andy Jones pictured, who was formerly published by Simon & Schuster.


Octopus imprint Cassell is to publish a feminist series by Zing Tsjeng, UK editor of VICE.com’s women’s interest channel Broadly, uncovering the lost “herstories” of women “who have refused over thousands of years to accept the hand they had been dealt”, according to the publisher. The first in the series, Forgotten


VICE has Broad appeal for Octopus


Lewis turns a Corner to join HC for seven figures


Susan Lewis left has moved from Cornerstone to HarperCollins in a seven-figure,


six-book deal. Executive pub- lisher Kate Elton and publisher Kimberley Young partnered with Liate Stehlik at William Morrow in the US to acquire world (all- language) rights from Luigi Bonomi at LBA Books. HarperFic- tion will publish two of her titles a year, starting in spring 2019.


06


Women: The Scientists and Forgotten Women: The Leaders, will be pub- lished on 8th March 2018—Interna- tional Women’s Day. The Scientists uncovers the work of 48 women from a myriad of scientific disciplines, while The Leaders weaves together 48 portraits of pioneers who made “huge yet unacknowledged” contributions to history. , Commissioning editor Romilly Morgan acquired world rights from RCW’s Emma Paterson.


Glenny’s Mafianomics to follow TV-adapted title


C+W has Mafi- anomics by jour- nalist Misha Glenny left out on submission,


described as “funny, frightening, but above all, illuminating”. In Mafianomics, Glenny exposes the economic mechanisms behind the successes of mafias around the world. The author’s McMafia (2008) has been turned into a “major” eight-part BBC1 drama, due to air in January 2018.


The UK publishing industry’s concentra- tion in London has been a hot topic in the past year. The Northern Fiction Alliance, launched in August 2016, is adding two new members, it has revealed: Hull-based Wrecking Ball Press and Scarbor- ough-based Valley Press. They join current members Comma Press, And Other Stories, Peepal Tree Press, Dead Ink, Saraband, Tilted Axis, Bluemoose Books, Route and Mayfly Press.


The alliance’s new website will launch this week, featuring a digital rights catalogue and specially commissioned readings and inter- views with authors.


Ebury launches gift list Pop Press Ebury is launching an imprint dedicated to creative giſt publish-


ing. Led by Laura Higginson and Elen Jones, Pop Press will publish around 20 trend-led “beautifully designed, impulse-price-point” titles a year. The list launches tomorrow (12th October) with The Wisdom of Unicorns, illustrated by Danielle Noel, and Pride and Preju- dice & Emojis. Titles for 2018 include The Periodic Table of Feminism, How to Tie a Headscarf andMermaidMagic.


Mermaid Magic


Higginson said the imprint was “Ebur s way t focus o tive creative energy to ensure our books are the giſts that shoppers


choose”. Jones said the list


had “had loads of great support from trade and non-trade retailers”, and that the publisher is keen to work with agents and established authors who rky


have “offbeat trend-led ideas or quirky passion projects”.


authors who eas or quir


Hot Key cherry-picks Italian YA début


Hot Key has acquired English- language and translation rights, excluding Italian, for The Dis- tance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Italian débutant Paola Peretti. Executive director Jane Harris bought the rights— after reading just 39 pages— from agent Marianne Gunn O’Connor on Vicki Satlow’s behalf. The YA title is based on the author’s struggle with her sight. Harris called it a “unique future classic of storytelling”.


Trapeze jumps on Hollingworth’s Mad Dad


Trapeze has signed a “moving” memoir about a young woman’s return to rural Wales to care for her father, who has Alzheimer’s, after a “hotly contested” auction. Publisher Anna Valentine bought world English-language rights to My Mad Dad by Robyn Holling- worth from Cathryn Summer- hayes at Curtis Brown. Described as “lyrical, poignant and beauti- fully written, with flashes of bril- liant humour”, the book will be published in April 2018.


Prize-winning Roy’s latest to MacLehose


MacLehose Press has acquired world rights (excluding India) to a novel by Anuradha Roy, whose Sleeping on Jupiter was long- listed for the Man Booker Prize and won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In All the Lives We Never Lived, a man who was abandoned as a child explores why his mother took flight across war-torn India. German rights were sold to BTB/Random House in a “significant” five- figure pre-empt.


11th October 2017


ure our books are the giſts that said the list upport from ailers”, and to work with


int was “Ebury’s way to focus our collec-


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