We are always excited to tout other projects by Busted Flush Press authors, and September has been a busy month for Edgar Award-winning crime writer Megan Abbott (Busted Flush Press's A Hell of a Woman), with her signing two nice book deals, one for novels and another for a graphic novel...Reagan Arthur Books—a new imprint at Little, Brown headed by esteemed editor Reagan Arthur—picked up Megan's next two novels ("brokered by the brilliant Dan Conaway at Writers House," Megan says). The first, scheduled for spring 2011, will be entitled The End of Everything, and will be Megan's first contemporary novel, told from the point of view of a 13-year-old girl whose best friend disappears.
Acquiring editor Reagan Arthur (whose authors include George Pelecanos, Kate Atkinson, and Ian Rankin) confessed, "I was late to discover Megan's talent. Kate Atkinson told me she's great, a recommendation I take seriously. So I read her books and joined the club, and was thrilled to get the chance to read her new novel... and also that it's contemporary, a new direction for her."
Another fan of Megan's is fellow NYC crime writer Alison Gaylin, who, with Megan, just signed a deal with DC Comics for a graphic novel! According to Megan, the work—Normandy Gold—is still in the early stages.
There's a little mutual admiration going on between these ladies: Megan calls Alison simply "fabuolous," and Alison praises Megan's previous novels as "some of the most haunting and evocative writing that's out there today. Megan is also a great friend, and a lot of fun to work with."
Which brings us to the graphic novel... Alison said, "Coming up with our treatment for Normandy Gold was a blast! One of those collaborations that gets you all excited just to be a part of it. We had a meeting in person, then brainstormed mostly by email, with one of us coming up with a draft of an outline, and the other adding to it and refining, sending it back to the other, etc. We have very different writing styles, but very similar obsessions, and in so many ways we are on the same wavelength." Sounds like a match made in heaven... Look for it late next year!
(And further congrats to Alison who herself just sold a three-book deal with Morrow. Get a load of the first, to be a series debut: And She Was will be about an investigator with hyperthymistic syndrome—a disorder which makes her remember everything that ever happened to her in perfect, visceral detail, including the disappearance of her sister. What a great concept! Visit her online at http://www.alisongaylin.com/.)
And in other Megan news:
* Nothing new on the Die a Little / Jessica Biel film (in the works for the past two years), but Megan did sell an option on Queenpin to Sony, for a possible TV series!* But Megan would like to point out that "the real news, however, is my husband Josh Gaylord, on a fast-track to literary stardom!" His first novel, Hummingbirds, comes out from HarperCollins in just a few weeks. His second novel—which Megan describes as "Cormac-McCarthy-Does-Zombies"—is called The Reapers Are the Angels—and comes out from Holt in August 2010.
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Megan Abbott is the author of four highly acclaimed historical crime novels from Simon & Schuster: Die a Little, The Song Is You, Queenpin, and 2009's Bury Her Deep. She also edited Busted Flush Press's award-winning female noir anthology, A Hell of a Woman. Her Anthony Award-nominated short story, "Policy" (in Busted Flush Press's Damn Near Dead), was the basis for her Edgar Award-winning novel, Queenpin. She lives in New York City. Visit her website at http://www.meganabbott.com/.
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