Following a “careful review,” Apex Magazinehas removed the story “Vigil of the Tenth Air” from Apex #153 amid skepticism around the author’s potential use of AI tools for its writing.
Though ultimately not selected for publication, a shortlisted story for Apex imprint Violet Lichen’s upcoming ECO25: the Year’s Best Speculative Ecofiction was also struck from website listings after it came to light that other work associated with the author’s pen name was “recently removed from several other short fiction publications under suspicion of AI usage.”
In response, Apex Book Company, Apex Magazine, and Violet Lichen announced plans to reevaluate their submission guidelines, including “refining the language” of its AI clause and “expanding” the team’s internal review processes to more ably respond to concerns around LLM usage. The editorial team clarified that they do not intend to use AI screening applications or request early drafting papers for evidence “in the event a piece is suspected of AI use after publication,” and will converse directly with the author(s) involved “to discuss the story in further detail” and come to an appropriate resolution.
The Apex team is resolved to apply the lessons learned both from our experience, and from the invaluable reports and statements compiled by fellow indie publishers, to fortify our submission process against AI-assisted work, and to continue uplifting strange, surreal, beautiful speculative fiction written with passion and care by humans, for humans.
This comes after the recent news covered by Locus concerning speculation that some of the regional winners of the Commonwealth Prize may have at least partially used AI to generate their work—the Commonwealth Foundation has since announced that they are “satisfied that AI was not used to write the winning stories” after an investigation—and Hachette’s March decision to pull horror novel Shy Girl by Mia Ballard from shelves after information alleging its contents were AI generated was shared with the company by the New York Times.
ELEANNA CASTROIANNI is now represented by Arley Sorg of kt literary.
ERIN LATIMER, CORAL ALEJANDRA MOORE, and J.C. SNOW are now represented by JABberwocky Literary Agency.
ROBERT J. SAWYER will be writer-in-residence at Calgary’s Alexandria Writers’ Centre Society from September 1 to November 30.
AWARDS
“Whatever Kills the Pain” by C.W. BLACKWELL won Best Long Story, “Blind Pig” by MICHAEL BRACKEN won Best Short Story, and “The Temporary Murder of Thomas Monroe” by TIA TASHIRO won Best Novelette in the 2026 Derringer Awards.
Trail of Shadows by MIKE ALLEN won the Webster Award at RavenCon 2026, held April 24-26.
BOOKS SOLD
ADA PALMER’s And Loki in His Prison and And Odin on His Tree, in “a Norse duology,” went to Mal Frazier and Patrick Nielsen Hayden at Tor via Cameron McClure of Donald Maass Literary Agency. Jennifer Gunnels will edit. UK rights sold to Nicolas Cheetham at Head of Zeus via Harry Illingworth of DHH Literary on behalf of Cameron McClure.
JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD sold Thrones and Powers and an untitled historical fantasy novel to Simon Taylor at Transworld in a pre-empt via John Jarrold of John Jarrold Literary Agency.
JON GRACEY’s Midnight in Ravenswood, OLIVER K. LANGMEAD’s Beneath the Martyr’s Eye, and RILEY SILVERMAN’s Because the Night, in the world of social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower, sold to Lee Harris at Tor. Carl Engle-Laird will edit.
STEPHEN ARYAN sold Silver Tongued Devils and another title to Marcus Gipps at The Broken Binding Press via Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment (world English).
CAITLIN ROZAKIS sold Dreadful sequel Half-Baked to George Sandison at Titan Books via Sarah Fisk of The Tobias Literary Agency.
CASEY SCIESZKA sold Future You, “about a young woman working at a Catskills hotel who finds herself trapped in a four-month ‘time scramble,’” to Sarah Stein at Harper via Ali Lake of O’Connor Literary Agency.
TRAVIS J.I. CORCORAN’s Red State Earth, a prequel to Red State Mars, and another book went to Tony Daniel at Ark Press.
Kelley Armstrong (2024)
DUSTIN PLANTHOLT sold Homebound Apocalypse and two more books to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault. Damian Wassel will edit.
KELLEY ARMSTRONG’s Immortal Lies, in which a young woman teams up with a vampire hunter to save a college from a coven of vampires, and another book went to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North via Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency.
ZACK PETROC and JUSTIN SLOAN’s “litRPG fantasy” Castle Crawl and another title sold to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North via Connor Smith of Hesperides Literary.
JC ROSS sold an untitled “litRPG fantasy” and another book to Gwyn Jordan at Rogueheart Press. Chelsea Karol will edit.
GENEVA LEE sold Harbinger and four more books to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower for seven figures via Louise Fury of The Fury Agency. UK rights sold to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.
JULIE HALL sold “Bridgerton-inspired historical romantasy” The Secrets of Everlight and another title to Elizabeth Vinson at Ace via Flavia Viotti of Bookcase Literary Agency.
JULIETTE CROSS’s “gothic standalone paranormal romances” The Ayre Witch, Of Frost and Fyre, and Vanity and Vampires went to Erika Tsang at Bramble for seven figures via Rachel Brooks of BookEnds.
JESSICA CAGE’s I Inherited a Gargoyle, “following a reluctant succubus,” and two more books sold to Jason Pinter at Simon Maverick via Patrice Caldwell of The Caldwell Agency.
SCARLETT ASH’s The Demon’s Kiss went to Amy Baxter at Avon UK via Haley Warrington of Booker Albert Agency.
KATE RHODES and JENNIFER XU, writing as KAIJU, sold Novae, with a romance between a necromancer and an astronomer, and two more titles to Rebecca Taylor at Inklore at auction via Ammi-Joan Paquette of Aevitas Creative Management. Sara Miller will edit.
COLETTE RHODES sold Harpy at High Tide, first in the Monsters at Sea series, and two more books to Elizabeth May at Kensington via Jill Marr of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
ASH LUKENS’s “polyamorous romantic fantasy” Signed in Shadows went to Katie McGuire at Alcove Press via Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Management and Mara Hollander of Azantian Literary Agency.
Ronald Malfi (2025)
KIERSTEN WHITE’s Drown: A Love Story, “in which a woman possessed since childhood uses her bond with the unknowable entity inside her to undo other dormant possessions, until the attacks begin zeroing in on her home,” sold to Tricia Narwani at Del Rey via Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency.
RONALD MALFI’s Revenant, “in which a detective investigating the disappearance of a local child is forced to confront the impossible return of his younger brother,” went to Ed Schlesinger at Gallery via Cameron McClure of Donald Maass Literary Agency.
CHRIS PANATIER sold Kill Me With Fire, in which a curse transforms two women into “feral witches,” to Alan Lastufka at Shortwave via Sara Megibow of Megibow Literary Agency.
BEAR LEE sold “cosmic giallo novel” Morphia Slow to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.
CHLOE SPENCER’s Make a House a Home, following a Midwestern tradwife, went to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.
MARIAH STILLBROOK sold Betsy, “about a possessed mannequin wreaking havoc on a group of teens in the ‘90s,” to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.
ANTOINETTE VAN SLUYTMAN’s Red Rhen, a “matriarchal cosmic-fantasy,” went to dave ring at Neon Hemlock via Julie Crisp of Julie Crisp Literary Agency.
SAMANTHA COHOE’s adult debut The Devoured, in which twins are haunted by their 20-years-prior kidnapping, went to Elana Gibson at Crooked Lane via Sarah Phair of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
STEPHANIE FELDMAN sold “feminist folk horror” In Summer She Turns Cruel to Christine Neulieb at Lanternfish Press via Stacia Decker of Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.
KATE WESTON’s Death Looks Good on You, “pitched as body horror meets the beauty industry,” went to Aleena Hasan at Daphne Press via Chloe Seager of Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.
AMY GIACALONE’s “modern-day ghost story” This May Come Back to Haunt Me sold to Megan Stielstra at TriQuarterly Books.
Shameez Patel (2024)
GABRIELLA GYLLENHOFF sold My Demon Exchange Student to Ashlyn Inman at Keylight.
SHAMEEZ PATEL sold Fang-Girling and another book to Ashley Imane Fields at Forever via Cathie Hedrick-Armstrong of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
EILIS O’NEAL’s “sci-fi dystopian duology” Redemption Ark and Renegade Stars, set on a reality TV show in outer space, went to Mary Kate Castellani at Bloomsbury Children’s at auction via Christabel McKinley of David Higham Associates. Meghan Maria McCullough will edit. UK rights went to Simon & Schuster UK at auction.
LIZ EDELBROCK sold Spectacle of Ruin, about a gods-cursed teen, to Wendy Loggia at Delacorte via Michelle Wolfson of Wolfson Literary Agency.
ELLE TESCH’s “YA adventure fantasy” The Gods We Buried went to Lydia Gregovic at Delacorte via Pete Knapp & Stuti Telidevara of Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.
MARC J GREGSON’s Bright Sky, first in the Below the Black fantasy trilogy, and two more titles sold to Jonah Heller at Peachtree Teen via Heather Cashman of Storm Literary Agency.
LAURA E. WEYMOUTH sold Willow Crowned, “in which an exiled king and a rebel serving girl clash on a remote island stronghold,” to Bess Braswell & Hana Tzou at Feiwel & Friends via Laura Crockett of TriadaUS Literary Agency.
JORDAN RIVET sold post-apocalyptic romance KATHARSIS to Sara Goodman at Wednesday Books via Lanie Davis & Daisy Garrison of Alloy Entertainment on behalf of Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
AMANDA DEWITT and MARIA INGRANDE MORA sold “academic rivals-to-queerplatonic-besties fantasy-comedy” Royal Person Fiction to Ashley Hearn at Peachtree Teen via Cate Hart of Harvey Klinger for DeWitt, and Erica Bauman of Aevitas Creative Management for Mora.
CATHERINE CHENG’s debut, literary horror Whitefish, “about a Michelin-starred chef who spirals into madness as he becomes increasingly entangled with a wealthy family – and the merman whose flesh he’s serving them,” sold to Kate Lucas and Sophie Garcia-Cubas Assemat at Flatiron Books for six figures at auction via Maddy Belton of Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency. UK rights went to Delayna Spencer at Hodder & Stoughton at auction.
ASH HUANG sold debut speculative novel The Secret Lives of Immortals, about a love story between “a poet from the Imperial Chinese palace and the Roman gladiator who tricks her into eternal life,” and another title to Angelica Chong at Redhook and Jenni Hill at Orbit UK in a pre-empt via Hana El Niwairi of CookeMcDermid.
JESSICA PLUMMER’s debut Magestruck, “a queer fantasy rom-com,” and another book went to Leyla Erkan at Harlequin via Eric Smith of Neighborhood Literary. The Conman’s Guide to Dragon Slaying, pitched as “an adult How to Train Your Dragon meets Heated Rivalry,” sold to John Morgan at Grand Central at auction via Smith.
LIVVY JANE BAKER’s debut, “sapphic enemies-to-lovers cozy fantasy” Advanced Alchemy, sold to Elana Gibson at Alcove Press via Fabienne Schwizer of Ki Agency.
Filmmaker and screenwriter LINDSEY ANDERSON BEER’s debut novel Hollow, “a feminist retelling of ‘The Legend of Sleepy Hollow’,” sold to Tara Singh Carlson at Putnam in a pre-empt via Alyssa Reuben of WME. Beer will adapt and direct a film version through the Honey Trap producing label with producers Sydney Sweeney and Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap.
MADELINE HAZE CURTIS sold debut A Light Mistaken for the Sun, pitched as a sapphic Interview with the Vampire, to Brittany Adames at Simon & Schuster at auction via Sasha Landauer of Writers House.
KATY LAIRD sold debut, horror Occult Entertainment, pitched as Squid Game meets Backrooms, and another title to Troix Jackson at Nightfire in a pre-empt via Kiana Nguyen of Donald Maass Literary Agency.
RORY FORREST sold “humorous sci-fi” Dave, the Space Pet to Summer Stewart at Unsolicited Press, by Stacey Kondla while at The Rights Factory (world English).
LILIA VARGAS COSTELLO sold debut Borderline, “for fans of Stranger Things and Rules for Vanishing,” to Ardyce Alspach at Union Square Kids via Stephen Barbara & Sidney Boker of Inkwell Management.
Cynthia Pelayo (2023)
CYNTHIA PELAYO sold Everina, a novella reworking of Frankenstein “inspired by Mary Shelley’s experience as a grieving mother,” to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency.
EMAN ABDELHADI and M.E. O’BRIEN will edit anthology When We Win: Dispatches from Revolutionary Futures for Dao Tran at Haymarket.
BEATKA LAKE sold “sapphic western horror novella” Beneath the Veins to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co via Paul Lucas of Regal Hoffmann & Associates.
AMALIA STONE sold 6 Steps to Survival, a “sapphic, dual timeline space opera novella,” to Veronica Holmes at Scylla.
BOOKS RESOLD
M.H. FOSTER resold The Demon Overlord’s Retirement Plan, first in a previously self-published fantasy series, Love, Politics, and Other Acts of War, and Band of Others to Morgan Spehar at Grand Central via Seth Fishman of The Gernert Company (NA).
KATE ASHER resold Crown of Olympus, Blood of Olympus, Blade of Olympus, and another book to Christine Ebbs at Penguin Australia via Saffron Dodd of ASH Literary.
ERICK THIEMKE, writing as ALWAYSROLLSAONE, sold three books in the series A Soldier’s Life to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault. Damian Wassel will edit.
PUBLISHING
CAILIN DUFFY has joined Orbit as assistant editor and NICOLE PUAPATTANAKAJORN has joined as administrative assistant.
EDEN RAILSBACK has joined Tor Publishing Group as an associate editor. She was previously at HarperCollins.
SARAH BLUMENSTOCK has been promoted to executive editor at Berkley.
Uncanny Magazine Managing Editor MONTE LIN will also become nonfiction editor starting with Uncanny Magazine Issue 72.
At Harper Collins, MAY CHEN and TESSA WOODWARD have been promoted to VP, publishers of Avon Group, which includes the imprints Harper Voyager, Avon, and Avon A. MORGAN PAGER has joined as senior director, marketing for Avon. RICH THOMAS has been promoted to SVP, group publisher and HEIDI RICHTER to VP, marketing and publicity at Harper Children’s.
MEDIA
REBECCA YARROS sold film rights to The Things We Leave Unfinished to Lionsgate. Yarros, Arash Amel of Amel Company, and Carly Kleinbart Elter and Alex Young of Hidden Pictures are executive producers. Todd Lieberman will also produce, Thea Sharrock will direct, and Amel will adapt the script.
Film rights to SARAH BLUE’s The Marriage Hex and The Fang Arrangement went to Molly Cusick at ReelShort.
Simon & Schuster has announced that Atria Gallery Group will relaunch the Pocket Books imprint as a core romance imprint that will also publish “additional genres including romantic thrillers, dark romance, and horror.” Anh Schluep, who is joining Atria Gallery, will be vice president, editorial director, and deputy publisher of Pocket Books. Schluep said,
I’m excited to be bringing back Pocket Books. The imprint, which published its first list in 1939, revolutionized the industry by making books available to readers in non-traditional outlets. The first contemporary U.S. publisher to democratize reading, it became the home for legendary romance authors including Jude Deveraux, Julie Garwood, and Judith McNaught. I look forward to publishing the next generation of fan favorites.
The imprint is planned to publish “two to three titles per month starting in January 2027.”
According to Publishers Weekly, Pocket was S&S’s main mass market paperback publisher until the format was phased out in early 2026. Gallery Books EVP and publisher Jennifer Bergstrom stated that Pocket will be rebranded “as a home for forward-thinking writers, including bestselling indie and hybrid authors looking to amplify their reach,” focusing on print deals for self-published authors.
Starlog, the magazine devoted to “visionary sci-fi and cutting-edge science,” has announced its return to print for November 13, 2026. The magazine will be published annually; there will also be a weekly email newsletter, Lodestar.
Annalee Newitz will serve as editor-in-chief, with Meredith Borders as senior editor and Jason Kauzlarich as senior art director. In a podcast episode announcing the relaunch, Newitz described the goals of the print issue:
“What is required of a magazine is to have something that you can’t get online, and that’s really thoughtful, engaging articles and beautiful, full-color images that just pop off the page…We’re going to have a healthy dose of articles about cutting-edge science, speculating with scientists about where we’re headed next. And we’re also going to have deep-dive essays from experts about all your favorite movies and books.”
The magazine will also be accompanied by The Starlog Podcast, hosted by Jordan Hoffman and Dave Gonzales. The show will feature “conversations with visionary creators, filmmakers, and scientists.”
Starlog magazine previously ran from August 1976 to April 2009, concluding with issue #374. The relaunch will be part of Fangoria’s media network.
Rebellion Publishing imprint Solaris has announced that it is being acquired by Profile Books. As of July 1, 2026 Profile will take over turnover and ebook distribution. As of September 1, it will take over physical books. Solaris staff Amy Borsuk, Natalie Sorrell Charlesworth, Jess Gofton, David Thomas Moore, and Amanda Raybould will transfer across.
Profile CEO Rebecca Gray said,
We are thrilled to be taking this big step into a new genre. Solaris is already home to a wealth of acclaimed authors writing original, captivating books. We can’t wait to work with them, and everyone involved from Profile and Solaris is terrifically excited to get going. It’s been a pleasure making the deal happen with Rebellion, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Rebellion head of Film, TV & Publishing Ben Smith said,
Since we acquired Solaris in 2009, we have grown the imprint into a market leader in SFF and Horror. We are immensely proud of the books we have published, the authors we worked with and the countless major award wins and nominations achieved by our dedicated authors, editors, designers and artists. We are excited to see the list, the team and Profile build off this success and thrive in the future.
Solaris was founded in 2007 by BL Publishing and acquired by Rebellion in 2009. Among its noted authors are Edward Ashton, Vajra Chandrasekera, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Adrian Tchaikovsky. For more information, contact Alison Alexanian alison.alexanian@profilebooks.com or Hannah Ross hannah.ross@profilebooks.com.
Keith Giles, co-owner of independent publisher Quoir, has announced the launch of new SF imprint Pink Beam Press, which will publish “visionary, provocative, and genre-defying speculative fiction.”
The imprint will launch at the Philip K. Dick Festival 2026 with seven SF novellas: Sim Cop and the Haunted City by David Agranoff, Shadowboxing by Gordon Bonnet, Glitch by Brian Evenson, Hard Video by Keith Giles, Bloody 13 by Sarah Langan, Services Rendered by Anthony Trevino, and Bubblegum Circuit Tower Dash by Andrew Turck. It will also publish short story collection Still Life with Apocalypse by Richard Kadrey and a new SF novella by John Shirley.
Giles said,
We created Pink Beam Press to champion the kind of science fiction that Philip K. Dick himself would have appreciated. Stories that question reality, challenge authority, explore consciousness, and force us to reconsider what it means to be human in an age of accelerating technological change. We believe science fiction remains one of the most important literary genres for understanding the world we are creating together.
CJ CHERRYH announced her retirement from writing on Facebook. She thanks her publisher Betsy Wollheim and wife “Jane, who is all things.”
KELLY MURASHIGE is now represented by Ashley Reisinger of Triada US. Murashige sold Milkiverse, in which a neurodiverse woman “discovers that drinking her customers’ leftover milk allows her to enter alternate worlds in which she is finally happy,” to Alexa Wejko at Soho Press via Savannah Brooks of kt literary.
LYSZ FLO and JEANÉ D. RIDGES have launched Spec Colorways In Verse, a “newsletter and community space” centering queer, BIPOC speculative poetry. It opened to submissions on May 16.
BOOKS SOLD
AKWAEKE EMEZI sold dark epic fantasy Eclipse & The Wolf and another book to Laura Schreiber at Voyager in a pre-empt via Jacqueline Ko of The Wylie Agency.
LYNN BUCHANAN’s Breeze Felt at Moonrise, first in a fantasy series with “a young woman growing mineral armor from her body who must leave home on a quest to prove herself to her people,” and another book went to Betsy Wollheim at DAW via Matt Bialer of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
LAUREN DEDROOG sold Bloodlorn, “pitched as Carmilla meets The Serpent and the Wings of Night,” and Godscorn to Toni Kirkpatrick at Diversion Books via Melissa Vandeputte of Hamley Books Literary Agency.
CHOI JIN-YOUNG’s Everything Happened at Once, translated from Korean by Soje and in which a virus sweeps away half the population overnight, went to Michael Reynolds at Europa Editions via Emma Thawley at Hachette UK. Lucrezia Lazzari will edit.
SHELBY CARLETON sold Sexpocalypse to Zach Phillips at Pantheon in a pre-empt via Charlie Olsen of Inkwell Management.
ARTHUR H. MANNERS’s Inworld, “pitched as The Three-Body Problem meets Annihilation,” and another book sold to Tim O’Connell at Saga Press via Brandi Bowles of UTA. UK rights sold to Chloe Gough at Voyager UK via Alexander Cochran while part of C+W on behalf of Mike Nardullo.
DULEY ANDERSON sold Saint of Despondent Pets, “in which a woman accidentally becomes a magical saint and must wrangle her newfound powers—and a love triangle between her boss and the saint of lost causes,” to Stefanie Chin at Union Square & Co via Hannah Andrade of Bradford Literary Agency.
Solar Hoàng (2025)
SOLAR HOÀNG sold River Runs Red in a historical fantasy duology set in Hanoi and another book to David Pomerico at Voyager via Angeline Rodriguez of WME.
MATT BELL sold Penitent, “a future-set novel cast in a medieval-like world,” to Thomas Gebremedhin at Doubleday via Kirby Kim of Janklow & Nesbit.
TRAVIS BALDREE’s Tales from the Territory, a five-story collection in the world of Legends & Lattes, went to Bill Schafer at Subterranean Press via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency. Jonathan Strahan will edit. UK rights went to Sophie Robinson at Tor UK.
SALLY SULTZMAN’s “dark fairy tale” They Are All Her Children sold to Darian Bianco at Apex.
CHARLENE CHALLENGER sold “cozy speculative novel” The Architect to Elsewhere and another book to Diana M. Pho at Erewhon Books via Kelvin Kong of K2Literary.
KAT COLLINS sold Jetsam, “the Murderbot Diaries meets Memento,” to Amy Borsuk at Rebellion via Brady McReynolds of JABberwocky Literary Agency.
DANIEL KALLA’s The Perfect Memory, “grounded in existing neuroscience, about a gene therapy that can erase traumatic memories,” and another book sold to Luisa Smith at Mysterious Press in a pre-empt via Liza Fleissig of Liza Royce Agency.
DETE MESERVE sold speculative mystery The Last Time She Saw and an untitled mystery to Melissa Rechter at Poisoned Pen Press via Christina Hogrebe of Jane Rotrosen Agency.
THOMAS PIERCE’s short story collection Do You Miss Earth? went to Meg Reid at Hub City Press via Jin Auh of The Wylie Agency.
BETH CATO’s A Manor Beyond the Mist, “weaving Arthurian lore and fae myth,” sold to Marilyn Brigham at 47North via Rebecca Strauss of DeFiore & Company.
MICHAEL SIMON sold Fifth Horizon, fifth in the First Command series, to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Michelle Hauck of Storm Literary Agency.
KURT SCHLICHTER sold American Warlord to Tony Daniel at Ark Press.
EMILIA HART sold The Enigmas to Sarah Cantin at St. Martin’s via Alexandra Machinist at CAA on behalf of Felicity Blunt at Curtis Brown UK. UK rights went to Amy Perkins at The Borough Press via Blunt.
TEOLINDA GERSÃO’s short story collection Alice in Thunderland & Other Stories went to Fernanda Viveiros at Arquipélago via Jennifer Thompson of Nordlyset Literary Agency.
JOHANNA VAN VEEN’s The Literary Remains of Cornelia Feyen, “a humorous epistolary novel pitched as intertwining Dutch faerie folklore with a sapphic love story,” sold to Rebecca Brewer at Bloomsbury Archer at auction via Kristina Pérez of Pérez Literary & Entertainment. UK rights sold to Delayna Spencer at Hodderscape.
ALTA HENSLEY sold dark romantic comedy Witchmoth in the Wake and another book to Laura Schreiber at Avon Impulse for six figures via Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency.
CHARLAINE HARRIS sold adult romantasy Hold My Spellbook, “pitched as The Bachelorette with swords and magic,” to Joe Monti at Saga Press. UK rights to Hold My Spellbook and another title went to Gillian Green at Bramble UK in a pre-empt via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency on behalf of JABberwocky Literary Agency.
KATRINA KWAN sold Deathly Beloved, following two vampires who work to end a war between their families, to Candice Coote at Berkley in a pre-empt via Jim McCarthy of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
KALIE REID’s “friends-to-lovers romantasy” Copperstitched went to Julia DeVarti at Little, Brown via Maddy Belton of Madeleine Milburn Literary Agency.
GUS KRIEGER’s romantic speculative The Seventh Ribbon, in which a widow finds typewriter ribbons that can ink a different reality, sold to Karen Kosztolnyik at Grand Central via Margaret Sutherland Brown & Jenna Land Free of Folio Literary Management.
ALYSSA PICKERING sold Princess of Lies and two more books to Rachel Winterbottom at Wayward TxF in a pre-empt via Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.
B. CELESTE sold Not Another Vampire Romance to Reina Galhea at Berkley XO at auction via Josi Beck of Beck Literary Agency.
JENNIFER ESTEP’s “Robin Hood-inspired” Queen of Foxes went to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Jessica Errera & Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency. Rebecca Heyman will edit. UK rights went to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.
JENNA WOLFHART sold dark romantasy Forsaken Crown, first in a duology, and another title to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Susan Velazquez Colmant of JABberwocky Literary Agency. UK rights sold to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.
RACHEL ROBINSON’s Echoed Vow and Golden Oath in the Resonant Hunger series and another title went to Ellie Folden at Love N. Books Press. Kayla Ireland will edit.
TESSONJA ODETTE’s “standalone fantasy rom-com” Elegance & Espionage sold to Kelly Smith at Zaffre via Kimberly Whalen of The Whalen Agency.
HEATHER CARTER sold gothic paranormal romance The Echoes of Radfield Hall to Lisa Green at City Owl Press via Marisa Corvisiero & Katrina Lemaire of Corvisiero Literary Agency.
TORRI HEAT’s paranormal romance Heresy and three more books went to Jasmine Callaghan at Boldwood via Katie Monson of SBR Media.
LINDY RYAN’s Final Girl Forever, in which a washed-up scream queen ends up a resident ghost in a mansion “until a botched seance forces her to step back into the spotlight and fight one last time for survival,” sold to Alexandra Sehulster at Minotaur via Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin & Fountain Literary Management.
TAYLOR GROTHE sold “queer, dark academia horror-romance” Lethal Kiss to Gillian Green at Nightfire UK.
KATE COLLINS sold Saint Death, set at a decrepit hotel now chosen as the site for a TV show, to Gina Iaquinta at Liveright via Stephanie Delman of Trellis Literary Management on behalf of Sara Langham. UK rights went to Harriet Hirshman at Dead Ink via Sara Langham at David Higham Associates.
BENEDICT ANNING’s Atomic Coffin, “blending deep-sea dread and psychological horror,” and another title went to Joe Monti at Saga Press at auction via John Baker of Bell Lomax Moreton Agency. UK rights sold to Simon Taylor at Transworld.
DAVE V. RISER sold Not Only Will this Kill You but It Will Hurt the Whole Time You Are Dying, following “a trans street kid turned necromancer,” to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.
HAILEY SPENCER’s Epiphyte, in which a grad student and her childhood friend are trapped in a story controlled by the rules of fairy tales, went to Amanda Manns at Creature via Marisa Corvisiero & Gabrielle Harbowy of Corvisiero Literary Agency. Krysta Winsheimer will edit.
CAITLIN CHISLING sold fantasy What the Wind Said, in which “a hungry wind uses impossible wishes to devour the living,” to Alyza Liu at Simon & Schuster Children’s via Bridget Smith of JABberwocky Literary Agency.
HILARY FILKINS sold The Living Half, following a girl and her mother after a zombie apocalypse, and another book to Alex Borbolla at Bloomsbury Children’s for six figures at auction via Elizabeth Bennett of Transatlantic Literary Agency.
CINDY PON sold Sheen, “in which a young woman lives among a traveling troupe of performers with illegal magic,” to Jenny Bak at Viking Children’s via Eric Smith of Neighborhood Literary.
KATHLEEN KITT’s fantasy romance Crown & Captive went to Jennifer Klonsky at Putnam Children’s via Lanie Davis & Viana Siniscalchi of Alloy Entertainment. Simone Roberts-Payne will edit.
ERICA SAGE’s Dead Things, “in which a girl discovers the rotting body of the most popular girl in school,” sold to Sofia Aves at Evernight Teen.
KYLIE LEE BAKER’s Infernally Yours, in which a teenage girl competes for the hand of the prince of hell to avoid being stuck as a yokai forever, went to Holly West at Feiwel & Friends via Mary C. Moore of Aevitas Creative Management.
DANA SCHWARTZ sold YA gothic historical fantasy Down Came a Blackbird and another book to Sara Goodman at Wednesday Books via Dan Mandel of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
ADRIANA MATHER sold A Curse of Stolen Time to Holly West at Feiwel & Friends via Rosemary Stimola of Stimola Literary Studio.
MEGAN FLETCHER’s YA “post-apocalyptic sapphic romance” Where Time Ends went to Kristie Choi at Atheneum via Juliana McBride of Rebecca Friedman Literary.
EMILY THIEDE’s YA fantasy romance Gilded Wings and another book sold to Vicki Lame at Wednesday Books via Chelsea Eberly of Folio Jr.
HAZEL CROSS’s YA paranormal romance Roses & Ruin sold to Jennifer Klonsky at Putnam Children’s via Lanie Davis & Viana Siniscalchi of Alloy Entertainment. Simone Roberts-Payne will edit.
VALERIE NORTON sold debut, fantasy adventure The Darkness Beneath, “pitched as inspired by The Mummy,” to Elana Gibson at Alcove Press via Bethany Hendrix of Spencerhill Associates.
S.J. CRISTEA sold debut, “fantasy rom-com” How to Save a Dog from the Underworld and another book to Julia Elliott at Avon in a pre-empt via Kiya Evans of Paper Literary. Canadian rights went to Mikaela Roasa at Harper Canada, and UK rights went to Phillipa Walker at Michael Joseph at auction, via Evans.
JUNE HARRINGTON sold debut Merely a Matter of Time, in which two scientists skilled in magic “accidentally fall 200 years back in time, only to fall for each other,” and another title to Ali Fisher at Wildthorn in a pre-empt via Aurora Fernandez of Trident Media Group. UK rights sold to Bella Pagan at Tor UK at auction on behalf of Marley Johnson of Trident Media Group.
CHARLOTTE PETERS’s debut, “swashbuckling western romantasy” The Silver Bounty and another book went to Alexandra Sehulster at Saturday Books at auction via Lisa Grubka of UTA. UK rights went to Saida Azizova at Renegade Books via Susan Armstrong of C+W.
Tamar Voskuni (2026)
TAMAR VOSKUNI’s debut Witch & Hunter, a romantasy in which a vampire bounty hunter targets a woman accused of witchcraft, and another book sold to Kate Roddy at akaSTORY for six figures at auction via Claire Friedman of Inkwell Management for Voskuni and via Stephen Barbara of Inkwell Management for Jenna Brickley of StoryGiants; and to Sophie Clarke at Wayward TxF at auction via Hannah Schofield of LBA.
ESME LEE WILMOT sold debut Parallel, “a domestic suspense novel with speculative elements,” and another title to Pippa White at Lake Union Publishing via Anjanette Fennell of Bookspark Literary.
GITA JACKSON’s debut, “LitRPG romance” Level Up for Romance! went to Emma Cole at Mira via Alex Land of Mad Woman Literary Agency.
MARIE CROKE’s debut, horror Hush Little Hauntings sold to Nivia Evans at Saga Press via Kaitlyn Katsoupis of Belcastro Agency.
TAUBIN DUPAVILLON’s debut, romantasy Ocean Eyes went to Frankie Vasquez at Olive Press.
CAITLIN CLEMENTS’s debut Every Stop Between Us, “a speculative coming-of-age romance,” and another book went to Kelsey Horton at Delacorte in a pre-empt via Renee Runge of Spencerhill Associates.
GARETH L. POWELL’s SF novella Downdraft sold to Jendia Gammon at Stars and Sabers.
AKUA LEZLI HOPE’s collection of speculative poetry Telepath went to Gnashing Teeth Publishing.
Hadeer Elsbai (2024)
HADEER ELSBAI’s horror novella You Just Have to Ask Me sold to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co in a pre-empt for publication in winter 2027, by Laura Crockett at TriadaUS Literary Agency (world).
JESSIKA FLECK’s ”Choose Your Own Adventure” The Hawthorne Vampire Society sold to Lizzi Middleman at Chooseco via Fiona Kenshole at Transatlantic Literary Agency. Eamon Dunn will edit.
BOOKS RESOLD
MICHAEL ROCH resold Lanvil, 2070, originally published in French, to Zach Phillips at Pantheon via Rebecca Wearmouth of PFD on behalf of Lucy Barry and Kieron Fairweather of PFD for La Volte. UK rights went to Christopher Sturtivant at Harvill Secker in a pre-empt via Barry and Fairweather.
ZOEY DRAVEN resold Desire in His Blood, Craving in His Blood, and Hunger in His Blood, the first three in “a sci-fi romantasy/monster romance series” to Emily Archbold at Del Rey via Kimberly Brower of Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.
Three books in JENNIFER CHIPMAN’s Witches of Pleasant Grove series resold to Phillipa Walker at Michael Joseph via Valentine Grinstead of The Seymour Agency.
PUBLISHING
At DAW, Head of Marketing and Publicity LAURA FITZGERALD will add Associate Publisher to their title, MADELINE GOLDBERG is now Associate Editor, and GRACE BROWN will join as Junior Designer.
JUDITH CURR, HarperOne president and publisher, retired May 29 after eight years leading the imprint.
STEPHANIE FRYLING joined HarperCollins as president of sales beginning May 11. Fryling was previously at Barnes & Noble and Penguin Random House. ROXANNE FINKELSTEIN has been promoted to director of publishing operations in managing editorial, GINA MACDONALD to associate director in production editorial, and TARYN ORTOLAN and ERIN PINKSEN each to assistant manager in production editorial.
Senior staff at Curtis Brown Creative, including ANNA DAVIS, have bought a majority stake in CBC from Curtis Brown UK. JONNY GELLER has resigned as director of CBC and the company will vacate Curtis Brown’s offices but maintain a relationship with it.
LISA LITWACK has been promoted to executive director of art as Simon & Schuster.
MEDIA
Film rights to The Midnight Library by MATT HAIG went to StudioCanal and Blueprint Pictures. Matt Haig will produce along with Florence Pugh. Gareth Davis will direct.
Film rights to The Buried Giant by KAZUO ISHIGURO sold to Netflix as a stop-motion film. Guillermo del Toro will produce, ShadowMachine will produce animation, and Dennis Kelly and del Toro will adapt the script.
Film rights to The Barbie Murders by JOHN VARLEY sold to FX Studios via Jon Levin of Sustainable Entertainment and the Virginia Kidd Agency on behalf of Kerry Varley for the Estate of John Varley.
Film rights to Rest Stop by NAT CASSIDY went to Coin Operated. Gary Dauberman and Mia Maniscalco will produce; Cassidy will adapt the screenplay.
Object permanence: Disney characters x clean underwear; Transparent Pontiac; Makers v dog with LED collar; Microsoft buys Linkedin; Legitimate greatness.
Upcoming appearances: LA, Menlo Park, Toronto, NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, Edinburgh, South Bend.
Over the weekend, I did an interview about my forthcoming book The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI (a book about being a better AI critic), and the interviewer said she was surprised that I wasn't an AI booster, based on my demographics and work history:
I could see where she was coming from. I encountered computers in the mid-seventies, as a small child. My first computer was a CARDIAC, a working, Turing-complete, mechanical computer made entirely of cardboard, that I spent endless hours with:
Then I graduated to a teletype terminal and acoustic coupler connected to a minicomputer at the University of Toronto. My mom, a kindergarten teacher, used to smuggle home 1,000' rolls of paper towel from the kids' bathroom. I'd get 1,000' feet of computing up one side, then another 1,000' down the other side, then I'd carefully re-roll the paper towel so she could put it back in the bathroom for the kids to dry their hands on.
After that, I got an Apple ][+ in 1979, and shortly thereafter acquired a modem, and that was it: I was hooked for life. I became an amateur programmer, then a professional programmer. I hosted forums on dial-up BBSes where I distributed software and offered support to strangers who wanted to connect their computers to the internet. I got a job as a gopher developer, then a web developer, then a CIO-for-hire, helping wire up small businesses and connect them to the net. Eventually, I co-founded a free/open source software startup, before transitioning to 25 years as a digital rights activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And for most of that time, I was energetically writing science fiction, eventually becoming associated with a school sometimes called "post-cyberpunk":
The force that energized all this work was a dialectical one, the contradiction that powered cyberpunk literature itself. For all that cyberpunk was undeniably enamored with the coolness and combustibility of new technology, it was also terrified of how technology could be a force for oppression, surveillance and control. As William Gibson says, "cyberpunk was a warning, not a suggestion."
Gibson's more famous quote, of course, is "the street finds its own use for things." In Gibson's novels (and in my own life in technology) all the most interesting things happen when users of technology (often without formal training or credentials) find ways to adapt the technology they use to suit their needs:
This is why I remain an ardent fan of Hypercard, Scratch and other meta-tools that are designed to allow non-programmers to write software that exactly conforms to their desires. Whatever the apps produced by these tools lack in sophistication and efficiency is more than offset by the fact that they give everyday people the power to directly control the tools they rely upon.
If "epistemic humility" means anything, it means acknowledging that no amount of "requirements gathering" can capture the needs of people totally unlike yourself as faithfully as those users can capture their own needs. Giving people the tools to produce their own software is always going to make tools – vernacular, idiosyncratic, homespun – that are more suited to their own hands and minds than anything a technologist working on their behalf could make.
The ancient dictum of "nothing about us without us" – born in 16th century Poland and taken up by the modern disability rights movement – asserts the right of people to control their own living conditions, and also the unique capacity of people to understand their own needs. You know what's even better than being consulted on the design of the technology you use? Having direct control over that technology!
This is why I was so suspicious of the iPad. The iPad's much-lauded "ease of use" was entirely about how easy it was to use an iPad to consume technology. But the iPad remains the single most user-innovation-hostile technology in modern history, a device designed to make it impossible to produce technology without permission from a remorseless multinational corporation. This is cyberpunk as a demand, not a warning:
The technology I've championed all my life is technology that gives more control to its users. One of my immutable precepts is that people who are different from me know things I can't know, and the only way I can get the benefit of their unique knowledge and perspective is if they are free to make and share things that matter to them. As Dan Gillmor said, back when he was inventing the study of citizen journalism, "My readers know more than I do":
And while I am broadly very skeptical of AI, and deeply alarmed by the proliferation of "vibe coded" software in production environments, vibe coding for personal projects is a useful and exciting addition to the lineage of tools that let computer users decide how their computers will work. For people making personal projects, vibe coding extends the power of shell scripting, cron jobs, Applescript, and other desktop automation tools to a wider audience.
One of the journalists I spoke to last week about my book described how he had vibe coded an app that showed him an alert every time a plane flew over his house, giving the tail number and other details of the flight. This is information that I have no need for and no interest in, and that I'm therefore excited to learn about, because its very existence affirms that the world is full of people who are delightfully, irreducibly, amazingly different from me, and moreover, that their unique needs can be directly met using their imaginations and their personal computers.
I recently sat down with my colleague Naomi Novik, a brilliant author who also co-founded Archive of Our Own. Naomi demoed her followup to AO3 for me: Wreccer, a system to help you find small groups of people with taste similar to your own, in order to facilitate media recommendations within that group – a kind of personal, relationship-driven alternative to massive, centralized, monolithic algorithmic recommendation systems:
Naomi told me that Wreccer was being built using the same design ethos that the original Twitter embraced. When Twitter launched, it was an API first, and the official Twitter front end was built on that API – but anyone could build their own front end for Twitter that worked in the way they wanted it to. Now, the word "anyone" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because most people don't even know what an API is, and of the people who do, most of them were not capable of writing their own software front end for Twitter.
But Wreccer is being designed for the age of vibe coding, and the API will really allow anyone who uses the service to design their own interface to the system, one that elevates and centers the features they find useful and tucks away the ones they're not interested in. Your personal, custom front end could also bring in other data-sources – pulling in your Mastodon messages, for example, or even showing you an alert with the tail-number of any plane flying over your home.
This is the part of vibe coding that I'm quite excited about, but it's not the part the industry focuses on. Instead of hearing about how personal, homemade software utilities can be an end unto themselves, we hear about vibe coded projects as prototypes for commercial production code. We hear about clueless bosses vibe coding software products and services that run fine for one user on a siloed desktop computer, and then demanding to know why it takes 50 engineers a year to make the same thing work for millions of users on the public internet. We hear about people who vibe code and submit patches to free/open-source software projects with millions of users, overwhelming project maintainers with slop code that is riddled with security vulnerabilities.
Of course, there's an obvious reason why the industry wants to focus on the potential for vibe coded software to replace production code. The AI bubble has burned up $1.4t to date, while bringing in mere tens of billions of dollars per year, even as its unit economics grow steadily worse:
To keep the bubble inflated, AI hucksters must promise massive economic returns to the technology. They want investors to believe that vibe code is about to replace working programmers, who are skilled, high-waged, high-demand workers. Their pitch is that for every million dollars' worth of programmers that an AI salesman and a boss conspire to fire, half a million dollars will go to the AI company whose bots shit out that vibe code.
That's par for the course with the AI bubble, whose focus is entirely on how AI can centralize, control and homogenize our lives. Whereas early desktop publishing, web publishing and social media gave us a glorious higgledy-piggledy of chaotic, weird and transgressive hobbyist media and retina-searing designs, AI art and design are instantly recognizable at a thousand yards, and it all looks the same, boring, and washed:
AI companies have released open weight/open source models that can run on your own computer, but these are treated as side-shows and toys and demos. The real action, we're told, is in "frontier models," which is industry-speak for "a piece of software whose running costs exceed the GDP of most countries":
Perhaps this is why the dynamics of AI are so different from the early dynamics of the web. Early web users were workers, who demanded that their bosses allow them to use the web and so devolve more power to people doing their jobs. By contrast, today's most ardent AI boosters are bosses, who threaten workers who don't use AI enough in the course of their duties:
Where we do see idiosyncrasy emerging from AI usage, it's often terrible. AI can help you create a folie-a-un in which you and a chatbot team up to reinforce your delusions and drive you deeper into a world of dangerous mirage:
There's a (false) story that's told about people who championed the early internet: that we were blithely certain that technology could only be a force for good, and negligently disinterested in the possibility that technology could control, extract and harm. That's demonstrably untrue: recall cyberpunk's dualism of "the street finds its own use for things" and "cyberpunk is a warning, not a suggestion."
More true is to say that early internet champions were alive to the importance of the internet, and therefore both excited about the possibilities of the internet to deliver a world of connection, idiosyncrasy, love and solidarity; and about the danger of the internet as a dystopian system of surveillance and manipulation:
History isn't finished. Long after the AI bubble pops, there will be local models and people vibe coding homemade software that respond directly to their needs. The stuff we make on our own computers, for ourselves, is deplatformed from its inception. It's part of the life we can build in technology's "shadowy corners" that we used to just call "technology." The fact that this stuff is utterly unsuited to be production code makes it inherently unmonetizable. It's how the street finds its own use for things:
Virtual: The future of world governance, with Kim Stanley Robinson (UN Independent Expert on International Order), Jun 19 https://www.youtube.com/live/wJvBvYdaAMY
"Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.
"Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com
Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America. Third draft completed. Submitted to editor.
"The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.
"The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.
A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING
This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.
Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.
"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla
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After a long career of publishing gorgeous limited editions, collections, art books, and novellas, publisher Bill Schafer has shared the news that Subterranean Press will be permanently closing in the coming years. Subterranean intends to continue publishing work through the end of 2027, “which may bleed into 2028 as we wrap things up.” Schafer says,
We want to handle this in a structured, orderly fashion, which will include communicating with a large number of writers, artists, as well as publishers we license rights from.
One goal of our plan is that we either complete a number of ongoing series, or place them with other presses, to be continued in the same style as our volumes, so long-time customers will have a uniform set.
I hope that answers a few questions. Answers to others will have to wait until more of this process unfolds. I ask that you not deluge us with them.
From their website: Based in Burton, Michigan, Subterranean Press has been putting out approximately 45 titles each year. Since it began in 1995, both the publisher and numerous works it has produced have been honored with accolades including the World Fantasy, Locus, Horror Writers Association, and Hugo Awards.
Among the authors Subterranean has published are Kelley Armstrong, Ted Chiang, Alix E. Harrow, Joe Hill, Fonda Lee, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Arkady Martine, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Tamsyn Muir, John Scalzi, Robert Silverberg, and many more.
Our books have included artwork by Rovina Cai, Jon Foster, Victo Ngai, Dave McKean, Matt Mahurin, and many others.
JON COURTENAY GRIMWOOD is now represented by John Jarrold Literary Agency.
LYNNE M. THOMAS and MICHAEL DAMIAN THOMAS were amicably divorced on April 2. Uncanny Magazine is now entirely under the ownership of Michael Damian Thomas per the divorce settlement.
BOOKS SOLD
S.A. CHAKRABORTY sold an untitled novel and another book to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager US for seven figures via Hannah Bowman of Liza Dawson Associates.
BRANDON SANDERSON and PETER ORULLIAN sold contemporary fantasy Songs of the Dead, first in the Strata Wars trilogy, and two more books to Marcus Gipps at The Broken Binding Press via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency on behalf of Joshua Bilmes of the JABberwocky Agency.
CHRISTOPHER RUOCCHIO sold short story collection Songs of the Sun Eater, “set in the world of the galaxy-spanning saga,” and another book to Aranya Jain at DAW via Danny Baror of Baror International. UK rights went to Nicolas Cheetham at Head of Zeus.
CL HELLISEN’s The Shape of Monsters and A Million Points of Light went to Bella Pagan at Tor UK via Caro Clarke of Portobello Literary.
GENOVEVA DIMOVA’s The Travelling Museum of Witchcraft went to Stephanie Stein at Tor via Brenna English-Loeb of Transatlantic Literary Agency. UK rights sold to Amanda Raybould at Solaris.
JENNIFER G. BLAKE’s Midnight at the Immortalium, “pitched as Ocean’s Eleven but fantasy,” and another book sold to Sareer Khader at Ace at auction via Samantha Fabien of Root Literary.
VAISHNAVI PATEL’s The Library of Lost Time went to Natalie Hallak at Ballantine via Jordan Hill of New Leaf Literary & Media.
SAARA EL-ARIFI’s Sinnerman, “following an immortal who masquerades as a detective but consumes sins to survive,” and another book went to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co in a pre-empt via Ginger Clark of Ginger Clark Literary on behalf of Juliet Mushens. UK rights to Sinnerman and two more books went to Charlotte Trumble at Harper Voyager UK via Juliet Mushens of Mushens Entertainment.
KATIE SIEGEL sold One for the Books to Shannon Plackis at Avon A via Melissa Jeglinski of The Knight Agency.
M.O. WALSH sold near-future story L3K to Gabriella Mongelli at Little, Brown in a pre-empt via Renée Zuckerbrot of Massie McQuilkin & Altman.
JULIE BUXBAUM sold The Past Selves Club to Margo Shickmanter at Avid Reader Press via Jennifer Joel of CAA. UK rights went to Joanna Lee at Juniper.
CATHERINE LEROUX sold Republic of Glass set in a near-future Montreal and translated by Katia Grubisic, to Sally Howe at Scribner via Jacqueline Ko of The Wylie Agency. Canadian rights went to Nicole Winstanley at Scribner Canada via Jessica Bullock of The Wylie Agency UK.
TANIA MALIK’s Vanished Creatures sold to Emily Griffin at Holt, at auction via Nicki Richesin at Dunow, Carlson & Lerner.
NAINA KUMAR’s Diamond of the Rebellion, “pitched as a speculative reimagining of the Victorian era” following an Indian princess, went to Sarah Blumenstock at Ace in a pre-empt. Kumar’s modern paranormal romance You’ve Been Ghosted went to Kara Cesare at Bantam Dell via Johanna Castillo of Writers House. Gabby Colangelo will edit.
JOANNA RUTH MEYER sold two books in the cozy fantasy series Tea & Wizardry to Marilyn Brigham at 47North via Sarah Gerton while part of New Leaf Literary & Media.
JEFF WHEELER sold The Last Harbinger and two more books to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North.
ROBERT CHARLES WILSON’s 40 Million Years of Summer sold to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications via Shawna McCarthy of The McCarthy Agency.
DAVID LISS sold The Death and Birth of Iliana Marek to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications. Rick Klaw will edit.
AUSTON HABERSHAW’s fantasy novel In Her Exquisite Clutches to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications via Joshua Bilmes of JABberwocky Literary Agency. Jaymee Goh will edit.
RR HAYWOOD’s “multiverse adventure novel” Changing Worlds sold to George Sandison at Titan Books via Anthony Harvison of The Double Agents.
HANNA HEDGEWARD sold fantasy novel Fallow Lies the Blood to Katie McGuire at Alcove Press via Amy Giuffrida of Belcastro Agency.
LASHAWN M. WANAK’s short story collection The Works of Her Hands sold to Patrick Swenson at Fairwood Press via Kristopher O’Higgins of Scribe Agency.
MARIA DONG’s “steampunk adult fantasy mystery” Pastiche went to Laurie Johnson at Severn House via Amy Bishop-Wycisk of Trellis Literary Management.
LUKE BECKSTRAND’s Spark of Life and books two to six in the Axion series went to Sally O’Keefe at Primera.
BRENDON TAYLOR’s In Tune for Murder, An Overture to Murder, and books three to five in the George Picardi Mysteries series; as well as The Apothecant, The Bloodstone Curse, Counting in the Dark, The Archivist, and The Bloodstone War; went to Tanya Anne Crosby at Primera in two separate deals.
KELLY FAE WILSON sold Unraveling Fate, Weaving Fate, and Balancing Fate to Sally O’Keefe at Primera.
DAVID LAWRENCE MORSE sold “speculative literary novel” The Occident to Jaynie Royal at Regal House.
Four books in an untitled litRPG series by SHAMI STOVALL went to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.
NORET FLOOD’s Conduit series sold to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.
LINDARAE SANDE’s historical fantasy titles A Bloom for a Blacksmith, A Hero for a Housekeeper, A Maiden for a Monster, A Lookalike for a Lord, A Mate for a Methuselah, and An Inamorata for an Immortal went to Kathryn Le Veque at Dragonblade Moonrise.
SHANNON IWANSKI sold The Wages of Sin, first in a “supernatural queer detective noir” series, plus Burned by a Cold Kiss, They Must Be Fed, Renaming the Dead, and To-Be-Dead Pile to Staci Troilo at Rogue River via Metamorphosis Literary Agency.
MORGAN BRIDGES’s dystopian romance trilogy, The Nocturnal Sequence, went to Stephanie Beard at Podium Publishing for seven figures.
REBECCA ROSS sold A Bittersweet Spell and two more books to Julia Elliott at Harper Voyager US via Suzie Townsend of New Leaf Literary & Media. UK rights sold to Elizabeth Vaziri at Harper Voyager UK.
LYNN CAHOON’s Black Mountain Magic, first in the Enchanted Mountain Bakery Mysteries series, and two more titles went to Michaela Hamilton at Kensington via Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency.
TASHIE BHUIYAN’s Double Take and another title went to Carrie Feron at Gallery via Stuti Telidevara and Pete Knapp of Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.
KIMBERLY LYNN HANSON sold horror fantasy romance I Am the Devouring Dark and another book to Ruth Atkins at Michael Joseph via Bethany Weaver of Weaver Literary Agency.
PENELOPE BLOOM resold Unbound, the first book in the Confluence Academy series, and sold two more titles to Madeleine Colavita at Forever via Katherine Odom-Tomchin of Folio Literary Management. UK rights went to Jessie Goetzinger-Hall at Headline.
LJ ANDREWS sold Blood in the Ink, first in a dystopian romance series, and another book to Kristine Swartz at Ace via Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency.
KASSANDRA ALEXANDER’s The Elevator Glitch, “a Greek and Greek mythology-inspired speculative romantic comedy,” went to Chelsea Villareal at Podium Publishing via Christina Zobel and Susan Velazquez of JABberwocky Literary Agency.
NANCY TUCKER’s Nice Things All the Time went to Katherine Burdon at Quercus in a pre-empt via Hattie Grunewald of The Blair Partnership.
LEAH LOBEL sold contemporary paranormal romance Bleeding Me Dry and another title to Sam Brody at Forever via Emily Forney of BookEnds.
K.A. LINDE sold the “last two” books in the Oak and Holly Cycle to Liz Pelletier at Red Tower via Kimberly Brower at Park, Fine & Brower Literary Management.
N.K. BROWN’s dark romantic fantasy A Bounty of Blood and Bargains in the Devil’s Huntress series sold to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.
TI MIKKEL’s Echo of Ashes went to Yelena Casale at City Owl Press.
LESLIE O’SULLIVAN’s fantasy romance Moon Strings went to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.
STEPHANIE MŌSHER’s Flame and Sorrow went to Lisa Green at City Owl Press.
ASHLEY SELLMAN sold A Prison of Stone, first in the Fae of Broken Kingdoms series, and another title to Twisted Words.
JASMINE WIGHAM sold The Library of Botanical Witchcraft to Hannah Bowstead at Headline via Stevie Finegan of Zeno Agency.
ALEXANDRA BRACKEN’s Immortal Rose and another book went to Kate Agar at Tempest via Alessandra Birch of Writers House on behalf of Merrilee Heifetz.
GENEVIEVE K. THOMAS sold an untitled cozy romantic fantasy and another title to Sophie Judge at Second Sky via Kiya Evans of Paper Literary.
ANGELA MONTOYA’s romantasy The Immortal Undoing sold to Bria Ragin, David Yoon, and Nicola Yoon at Joy Revolution via Larissa Melo Pienkowski of Azantian Literary Agency.
ISABELLE TAYLOR’s Fake Dating with a Dragon, fifth in the monster romance series Claw Haven, and another book went to Stephanie Doig at Harlequin.
PREMEE MOHAMED and JONATHAN SIMS’s From the Library of Jurgen Leitner, set in the Magnus Archives universe, and two more books sold to Lydia Estrada at Random House Worlds via Rusty Quill.
GARETH L. POWELL sold Unleashed and another book to Fenton Coulthurst at Titan Books via Lucienne Diver of The Knight Agency.
JESSICA LEWIS sold This House Is Not a Home to Ariana Sinclair at Morrow via Holly Root of Root Literary.
SETH HADDON’s Such Deep Hunger and another book sold to Oliver Dougherty at Nightfire via Maeve MacLysaght of Aevitas Creative Management.
TANYA PELL’s A Darkness Rather Blacker went to Kimberly Laws at Gallery via Marcy Posner of Folio Literary Management.
SEAN FERRELL sold In the Fields We Thirst to Ed Schlesinger at Gallery via Alec Shane of Writers House.
K LUCIAN JONES’s Ghosts of Bakersfield went to Justine Norton-Kertson at Android.
J.W. OCKER’s Our Monster Who Art in Heaven sold to Alexandra Murphy at Page Street via Alexander Slater while part of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
PETER CLINES sold The Off Season and another title to Peter Wolverton at St. Martin’s via David Fugate of LaunchBooks Literary Agency.
REBECCA KENNEY’s “haunted house horroromance” Writhe and two more books sold to Mary Altman at Sourcebooks Casablanca via Eva Scalzo of Speilburg Literary Agency (world).
Jacy Morris (2024)
JACY MORRIS sold A Town Painted Red, “in which an Indigenous graffiti artist… discovers that [Portland] is rotting from the inside out,” to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.
CARL ANTONOWICZ’s illustrated novel The Wreck and Ascension of the Good Ship Yanqui went to Alex Woodroe at Tenebrous Press.
LESLIE J. ANDERSON’s folk horror Children of the Wrong Heaven went to Randall Lotowycz at Quirk Books via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency.
DAVID MASSENGILL sold “queer horror-thriller” Mr. Doppelganger to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.
MAZEY EDDINGS sold “gothic horromance” The Bargain to Rachael Kelly at Dutton at auction via Claire Friedman and Jessica Mileo of Inkwell Management. UK rights went to Soraya Bouazzaoui of Headline Eternal.
PHILIPPA YOUNG sold “paranormal rom-com” Cold Hearts and another book to Holly Ingraham at Sourcebooks Casablanca via Lauren Bieker of FinePrint Literary Management.
AISLINN BROPHY’s “sapphic high fantasy” The Divinity Thieves went to Polo Orozco at Putnam Children’s via Sarah Fisk at The Tobias Literary Agency.
BRIDGET MORRISSEY sold YA romance I Put a Spell on You to Hannah Hill at Delacorte Romance via Taylor Haggerty of Root Literary. BRIDGET MORRISSEY, AUSTIN SIEGEMUND-BROKA, and EMILY WIBBERLEY writing as E.B. ASHER sold Last Night in Lyris to Priyanka Krishnan at Avon via Taylor Haggerty of Root Literary for Morrissey, and Katie Shea Boutillier of Donald Maass Literary Agency for Wibberley and Siegemund-Broka.
RACQUEL MARIE sold YA contemporary horror A Different Kind of Murder to Rachel Diebel at Feiwel and Friends via Thao Le of Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.
KENDALL ANNETTE’s YA novels Tylor Whitlock Just Won’t Die and Charlie Burton Has Killer Timing sold to Jennifer Thompson at Scholastic for six figures at auction via Bethany Weaver of Weaver Literary Agency.
SARAH PORTER sold YA gothic thriller A Darker Obscure to Alexandra Aceves at Holiday House via Rebecca Podos at Neighborhood Literary.
HAFSA A. JAWAD resold romantasy The Tales of Arcana Fortune and sold sequel The Mirrors of Runisia Winters to Alison Romig at Delacorte via Sophie Sheumaker of BookEnds.
RYAN DOUGLASS’s horror novel Night of Madness and another title sold to Kara Sargent at Simon Pulse via Petersen Harris of Temple Hill Publishing on behalf of Lane Clarke at Ultra Literary.
JO SALAZAR’s If We Survive the Night, If We Survive What Saved Us, and another title sold to Gabbi Calabrese at Sourcebooks Fire via Renee Runge and Ali Herring of Spencerhill Associates.
GWENYTH REITZ’s Prom Anomaly went to Emilia Sowersby at Roaring Brook Press via Uwe Stender of TriadaUS Literary Agency.
KALYN JOSEPHSON sold A Dragonslayer’s Guide to Love, Valor, and Other Myths to Kate Meltzer at Roaring Brook Press, in an exclusive submission via Carrie Pestritto of Laura Dail Literary Agency.
ROXANE DE ROUEN’s romantasy duology beginning with She Dies at Dawn went to Brian Geffen at Holt Children’s at auction via Lizzie Bishop of Faber UK.
ROWAN BRIGHTON BROWN’s young adult contemporary fantasy White Trash Witchcraft sold to Alexandra Aceves at Holiday House via Alexander Slater while part of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates.
Fabiana Muñoz (2024)
FABIANA MUÑOZ’s The Dead Walk in Pleasant Cove and another book went to Tamara Grasty at Page Street Kids via Vicky Weber of Creative Media Agency.
PAIGE COOPER sold speculative literary debut novel Nulligravida to Martha Sharpe at Flying Books via Samantha Haywood and Eva Oakes of Transatlantic Literary Agency.
SHIRA ERLICHMAN sold debut novel Tangerapple, “set in a lightly speculative version of New York,” to Deborah Garrison at Knopf in a pre-empt via Erika Stevens of Salky Literary Management.
B.N. KING sold debut Wolfboy, first in a trilogy, to Emily Archbold at Del Rey via Veronique Baxter at David Higham Associates. UK rights went to Rebecca Hilsdon at Michael Joseph.
MEGAN DANIELS sold Time Sick, “in which one woman travels forward five years in time to solve her own murder, only to find herself falling in love with her future self’s husband,” to Natalie Hallak at Ballantine at auction via Nicole Cunningham of Trellis Literary Management.
JOSIE BULLARD sold Dreams of Ruin and two more books to Andy Dodds at Podium Publishing via Christy Fletcher and Ariele Fredman of UTA on behalf of Alix Frank of DBA. UK rights went to Alexa Allen-Batifoulier at Del Rey UK at auction via Ciara Finan and Cathryn Summerhayes of Curtis Brown UK.
BRETT RYLAND sold Our Whole Lives Behind Us, following a widower who works for a time travel tourism agency, to MJ Johnston at Sourcebooks Landmark via Jane Dystel of Dystel, Goderich & Bourret.
MYLEE MILLER sold Heart of Bone to Marcy Harris at Alcove Press via Rachel Estep of D4EO Literary Agency.
JESSE ARAGON sold debut “horror-tinged epic science fantasy” The Demon Star and another book to Marcus Gipps at The Broken Binding Press via Imogen Bovill of Abner Stein on behalf of 2 Seas Agency for DAW Books and John Baker and Julie Gourinchas of Bell Lomax Moreton.
THERESA HUNTER’s debut romantasy Wings of Salt and Storm, first in a series, and another title sold to Kate Prosswimmer at Scarlett Press via Emily Forney of BookEnds.
REMY FINK sold debut Thespians: A Tragedy to Taz Urnov at Hell’s Hundred via Claire Harris of Helm Literary.
A.J. JACONO’s speculative debut Yes, Yes went to Katie McGuire at Crooked Lane via Logan Harper of Jane Rotrosen Agency.
Wen-yi Lee (2025)
ELLIE OWENS sold debut YA dystopian fantasy Cave Jumpers and another book to Madison Pelletier at Mischief Books via Juliana McBride of Rebecca Friedman Literary. Lydia Sharp will edit.
DENE PLEWS’s debut YA romantasy Queen of Thieves and another title went to Lydia Sharp at Mischief Books via Cole Lanahan of The Seymour Agency.
WEN-YI LEE will edit horror anthology The Kids Came Back Wrong for Mary Kate Castellani at Bloomsbury Children’s, sold at auction via Isabel Kaufman of Fox Literary. Kei Nakatsuka will edit.
SYLVIE ALTHOFF sold SF novella Trivial Matters, “featuring a transgender heroine lost in time,” to Justine Norton-Kertson at Android.
KWAN ANN TAN’s debut “speculative literary choose-your-own-adventure novella” The Waiter went to Mika Kasuga at Union Square & Co via Julie Finidori of Aevitas Creative Management UK.
LOUIS BAYARD’s The Night Caller, “pitched as a Dracula origin story,” went to Jovanna Brinck at Algonquin via Dan Conaway of Writers House.
Jamal Hodge (2024)
JAMAL HODGE will edit short story anthology Shards of Gotham: New York City Through the Looking Glass for R.B. Wood at Ruadán.
IVANA GEČEK’s Strange Flowers Blooming from Within, fourth in the Extremities “queer anthology series,” sold to David-Jack Fletcher at Slashic Horror Press.
DARYL GREGORY sold horror novella The Porcelain Sisters to Jacob Weisman at Tachyon Publications via Seth Fishman of The Gernert Company. Jaymee Goh will edit.
ROBERT J. SAWYER sold Sawyer on Science Fiction, a “collection of articles, columns, reviews, and speeches,” to Edward Willett at Shadowpaw Press.
BOOKS RESOLD
SHEILA MASTERSON resold The Poison Daughter to Nicole Otto at Slowburn for seven figures at auction via Alyssa Morris of Trellis Literary Management. UK rights went to Rachel Winterbottom at Wayward TxF at auction via Maddalena Cavaciuti of David Higham Associates on behalf of Allison Malecha and Tori Clayton at Trellis Literary Management.
ERIN AMPERSAND sold Time to Play, Making Friends, Hide and Seek, Breaking Rules, and Running Wild in the litRPG Apocalypse Parenting series to Ali Fisher and Maxine Charles at Tor in a pre-empt via Erin Malone of WME.
PIRATEABA resold The Wandering Inn and Fae and Fare to David Pomerico at Harper Voyager US via Drew Gilmour of Achilles Literary Agency.
BEN FARTHING resold novella Scurry, pitched as “in the vein” of Good Boy, to John Harlacher at Weird Tales Presents via Lane Heymont of The Tobias Literary Agency.
JACEY BEDFORD’s Psi-Tech trilogy resold to Wizard’s Tower.
ANTHONY TARDIFF’s Mirages resold to Elizabeth Agyemang at 47North via Carrie Pestritto of Laura Dail Literary Agency.
Three books in ARCANE CADENCE’s New Life As a Max Level Archmage series went to Rhett Bruno at Aethon & Vault. Damian Wassel will edit.
PUBLISHING
At Tor, ALEXA BEST has been promoted to publishing strategy associate, SAMANTHA FRIEDLANDER to associate marketing manager, LIZZY HOSTY to associate manager of publishing strategy, TYRINNE LEWIS has been promoted to senior marketing manager, EMILY MLYNEK to senior director of marketing, ERIN ROBINSON to associate manager of publishing operations, JESSE SHAMON to AdPromo designer, TIANA TOLBERT to senior social media manager, and BECKY YEAGER to associate director of ad promo and marketing.
ASHLEIGH HEATON has launched Enchantress Marketing, “a full-service book marketing agency specializing in genre fiction and open to traditional, indie, and hybrid authors.” It will offer services including “author brand development and management, individual title advertising and launch promotions, social media and newsletter strategy, convention planning assistance, website design, backlist support, and publishing consultations.” Heaton was previously director of marketing at Penguin Random House.
AUTUMN TOENNIS has joined Europa Editions as editor.
CRISTAL SANCHEZ was promoted to national account manager and SHELBY SWEET has joined as associate national account manager for Hachette Book Group.
SARAH GERTON has joined The Caldwell Agency as literary agent and audio rights manager. She was previously at New Leaf Literary.
MEDIA
Film rights to JOE ABERCROMBIE’s The Devils went to James Cameron at Lightstorm. Abercrombie and Cameron will co-write the script.
Film rights to OCTAVIA E. BUTLER’s Parable of the Sower sold to Warner Bros. Melina Matsoukas and Inga Veronique will produce, along with Color Force’s Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson, as well as managing director of Butler’s estate Jules Jackson. Matsoukas will direct.
Film rights to BEN MEZRICH’s forthcoming novel The Last Orbit: Genius, Terror, Defiance, and the Race to Avert Apocalypse sold to TriStar Pictures in a pre-empt. Beau Flynn will produce, Matt Shakman will direct, and Josh Friedman will adapt.
Film rights to YA dystopia Talented by SOPHIE DAVIS went to Molly Cusick at ReelShort via Flavia Viotti of Bookcase Literary Agency.
Film rights to AVERY FLYNN’s Head Witch in Charge sold to Molly Cusick at ReelShort.
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author’s potential use of AI tools for its writing.
