Month: March 2024

Paper Literary is pleased to announce that Melissa Pimentel has been promoted to Editorial Director at the agency. Pimentel joined the team in 2021 as an Editorial Consultant. In the past two years, she has worked closely with agents Catherine Cho and Katie Greenstreet on editorial work for their clients, facilitating multiple six-figure and seven-figure deals and hotly contested TV/film option auctions.

Pimentel brings with her nearly twenty years of experience. Before joining Paper, she worked as a Translation Rights Agent at the Curtis Brown Group for over a decade. She is a published author, having written three romantic comedies under her own name and two thrillers under the pseudonym, Jessica Barry. Her work has been translated widely and optioned for film and television.

Paper Literary was founded on a commitment to supporting authors through every stage of their career, particularly in discovery, with the majority of their authors being discovered via unsolicited submissions. As Editorial Director, Pimentel works closely with authors on idea generation, structural edits and line edits, and offers guidance to help their work achieve its fullest potential – from their debuts and beyond.

Melissa says, “As an Editorial Consultant, I have absolutely loved working with the Paper agents and their brilliant roster of authors and I look forward to collaborating with them more closely in this new capacity. The future looks so bright for Paper, and I’m very proud to be a part of such a vibrant, inspiring team helping to foster a new generation of talent.”

Catherine says, “Melissa has been an integral part of Paper and in helping the agency grow.  Having an in-house expert like Melissa is a sign of our commitment to our clients, and the time and investment we put into our authors even before they go on submission. Melissa has a brilliant editorial eye, she is incredibly supportive to our authors, and she brings a unique skillset with her author-agent-international rights perspective. I feel so lucky to have her as part of our team.”

We are delighted to announce that Melissa Hogenboom’s newest non-fiction project has been acquired by Canongate.

Canongate will publish Breadwinners: And other power imbalances that influence your life, an essential guide for all couples and professionals by award-winning science journalist Melissa Hogenboom.

Helena Gonda, Senior Commissioning Editor, acquired World rights from Catherine Cho at Paper Literary.

Pursuing and holding onto power is a key part of every single human interaction, and it affects every area of our lives. In Breadwinners, Melissa Hogenboom explores the various power dynamics impacting our relationships and gives readers the tools to learn to recognise and then shift these imbalances and expose how norms can be changed. Grounded in evidence-based research and offering insights into inequality, relationship satisfaction and the interplay of how power affects home and work life, Melissa invites us to rethink traditional roles and push for a fairer, more equal society.

Melissa Hogenboom said: ‘I’m delighted to be working with Helena and the wonderful team at Canongate, whose support and vision for the idea will give it the reach it deserves. I truly believe that a greater awareness around this topic will encourage lasting change that everyone can learn from and apply to their lives.’

Helena Gonda said: ‘What happens when one partner earns notably more than the other? And, crucially, how do you navigate that? It’s great to be working with Melissa as she takes us through takes us through the fascinating science behind power dynamics at play in our relationships. This is a book that help readers address issues around inequality and relationship satisfaction, status, money and work with renewed insight, and I’m so pleased to be publishing at Canongate.’

Melissa Hogenboom is an award-winning science journalist, author and commissioning executive at the BBC. In over a dozen years at the BBC she has written online news and features, produced and reported for television and radio. She is passionate about telling evidence-based stories for a general audience and has written numerous long-form science articles on a range of topics including human evolution, psychology and neuroscience. She reports and commissions exclusive and experimental content, from going troll hunting in Iceland, to searching for her cosmic twin in a parallel Universe, to tracing the footsteps of the world’s last Neanderthals.

We are delighted to announce deals for Austin Taylor’s debut novel Notes on Infinity in the US and UK. Katie Greenstreet sold North American rights to Deb Futter at Celadon in a seven-figure deal, at auction. UK rights were sold to Lily Cooper at Penguin Michael Joseph in a six-figure deal, at auction. German rights were sold to Heyne Verlag at auction.

Notes on Infinity by 24-year-old Harvard graduate Austin Taylor is an ‘extraordinary’ love story set against the world of Silicon Valley start-up culture.

Notes on Infinity begins in a chemistry classroom in Harvard, sometime in the late 2010s. Zoe and Jack couldn’t be from more different backgrounds, but they are both young, clever, ambitious – and instantly and irrevocably drawn to each other. When together they make a heart-stopping scientific breakthrough, they find themselves catapulted to the world of start-ups, fame, and money beyond their wildest dreams. But with it comes a maelstrom of insatiable greed, jealousy and deceit, and soon it becomes clear that their dream – and their relationship – might come at a heartbreaking price.

Austin Taylor is a 2021 graduate of Harvard University, where she studied Chemistry and English. She grew up in central Maine, where she now lives and writes, and will return to Harvard in the autumn to begin her law degree.

Taylor said: “I could not be happier that I and Notes on Infinity have found our home at Penguin Michael Joseph, and at Celadon in the US. Notes on Infinity is a product of my fascination with the real people living inside the sweeping dramas that capture our collective attention and dominate our news cycles. Lily Cooper and Deb Futter are a dream team, and I cannot wait to work with them to bring this book – and hopefully many more – into the world.”

Cooper said: “I was blown away by Notes on Infinity. Both a dazzling tale of ambition and deceit set against the vertiginous backdrop of Silicon Valley start-up culture and a deeply moving love story that had tears streaming down my face by the final page. This is the kind of extraordinary debut that as an editor, you dream of landing in your inbox. Austin’s assured, emotive storytelling will appeal to fans of Gabrielle Zevin, Maggie Shipstead and Jennifer Egan, but this story is completely unique, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be launching what promises to be a glittering career at Penguin Michael Joseph.”

Greenstreet said: “Notes on Infinity is singular in both its scope and its execution. It is a novel about ambition and expectation, about the promise and seduction of the Next Big Thing. It’s about the pressure placed on brilliant-but-unformed minds to move fast and break things, regardless of the cost. But most of all, this is a love story between a boy and a girl who meet in a college classroom and together dream up an idea that’s big enough to change the world, asking readers to recall their own first loves, first passions, first tragedies. I couldn’t be prouder to be working with Austin Taylor on this and all that is to come in her career.”

Congratulations, Austin!

We are delighted to announce deals in the US and UK for Christine Murphy’s debut novel, NOTES ON SURVIVING THE FIRE.

North American rights were acquired by Vanessa Haughton and Jennifer Barth at Knopf at auction, and Wildfire Books pre-empted UK & Commonwealth rights. NOTES ON SURVIVING THE FIRE is a bold and abrasive takedown of campus rape culture, and a critique of our capacity to tolerate such violence against women.

Editorial director Ella Gordon bought rights from Catherine Cho at Paper Literary. Wildfire and Knopf will publish simultaneously in spring 2025.

In Murphy’s novel we meet Sarah, a final-year PhD student in southern California, caught in a landscape of extreme wealth and raging wildfires – a far cry from her childhood spent hunting wild animals in the forests of Maine. These days she spends her time worrying about how she will be able to get a permanent academic position, and also doing ketamine and watching 80s movies with her best friend, Nathan.

Nathan was the only person to believe Sarah when she was assaulted by a fellow student. Sarah reported it to the university and to the police, but nothing happened. When Nathan is found dead of an alleged overdose, Sarah is convinced it is a murder; but, once again, the police don’t believe her.

As she digs into the case, she stumbles upon a disturbing pattern in the deaths of other young men on campus and begins to piece together a possible link between the victims.

Gordon said: ‘There are so many layers to Christine’s arresting debut. On the surface it’s a gripping literary page-turner about rape culture and revenge; but interwoven through that are deeper questions about attitudes to violence; in what circumstances – if any – one can justify killing; and there’s even some Buddhist philosophy in there for good measure. We can’t wait for readers to get their hands on this incendiary debut next year.’

Murphy said: ‘NOTES ON SURVIVING THE FIRE’ is my namesake- dark, rude, and wildly inappropriate. I am thrilled that Ella and the team at Wildfire love my enfant terrible as I do. I am grateful to them, and to my brilliant, ballsy agent, Catherine Cho of Paper Literary.

Cho said: “When I first finished reading Christine’s novel I felt I was clutching a heart in my fist – it is defiant, rage-filled, and darkly funny – it demands attention. Christine is a remarkable voice, and I am delighted she has found a wonderful home with Knopf and Wildfire.”

Christine Murphy has lived, worked and travelled in over 100 countries, including eleven months in a tent across the African continent and a year as a resident in a Buddhist nunnery in the Himalayas. She completed the world’s longest for-charity horse ride across Northern Mongolia, during which she broke her back (for the second time). A trained Buddhologist, Christine has a PhD in Religious Studies.

NOTES ON SURVIVING THE FIRE will be published in February 2025.