Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Rights – Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

Fiction The Silent End by Samuel Sattin Finished book available

Ragnarok Publications* September 2015

A Kirkus September Speculative Fiction reading list pick

In a mist-covered town in the Pacific Northwest three teenagers find themselves pitted against an unearthly menace that dwells beneath the foundations of their high school…

Eberstark is an outcast and he’s tired of pretending everything is fine. His mother disappeared almost a year ago after a long battle with depression. His father is conducting experiments and running around town in the middle of night with a mysterious man known only as The Hat, ranting to Eberstark about beasts no one else can see.

Then on Halloween night, Eberstark, alongside his only friends Lexi and Gus, discovers something in the woods to challenge his father’s apparent insanity: a wounded monster. Rather than stir the town into a frenzy, the three friends hide the creature and are pulled into a web of conspiracy, dream-logic, and death. Faced down by living trucks, mirror- dwelling psychopaths, and hellish entities who lurk behind friendly faces, Eberstark, Lexi, and Gus find themselves battling to save not just themselves, but the soul of their quiet little town.

Praise for THE SILENT END

“A young adult novel that’s right over the plate for pop culture fans.”—Bleeding Cool

“Do not read this at night. Do not read this alone. But read it. Now.”—Sean Beaudoin, author of The Infects

“A creeptacular novel written in the style of Stephen King....A masterful combination of horror as well as Young Adult literature which is likely to leave readers scared of their own shadows for a week.”—Bookie Monster

“Entertaining, provocative, and engaging.”— Freak Sugar

“So much fun and terror and tragedy and delight.”—D. Foy, author of Made to Break

“A tale perfect for Halloween and geeks...an outstandingly fun read.”—GeekDad

“Wild and mesmerizing.”—Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver

“Deeply melancholy, a little frightening…Samuel Sattin has written The Silent End for teenagers who are actually teenagers.”—Galleywampus

“A creepy, bizarre, nightmare-logic story which put me in the mind of the Alan Wake game or Stephen King’s work…An exceptionally well-written horror novel.” —The United Federation of Charles

“Smart yet accessible, creepy and hilarious, a vividly told novel both teens and adults will enjoy.” —Largehearted Boy

Samuel Sattin is a novelist and essayist. He is the author of League of Somebodies, described by Pop Matters as “One of the most important novels of 2013.” His work has appeared in The Atlantic, Salon, io9, Kotaku, San Francisco Magazine, Publishing Perspectives, LitReactor, The Weeklings, The Good Men Project and elsewhere. He has an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and an MFA in Comics from CCA. He’s the recipient of NYS and SLS Fellowships and lives in Oakland, California.

*Publisher controls World English language rights www.hillnadell.com [email protected] Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Rights – Frankfurt Book Fair 2015 Non-Fiction Sidewalking: Finished book available Coming to Terms with Los Angeles by David L. Ulin

UC Press October 2015

"In this brief but engaging book, the author chronicles his wanderings through the streets and his conversations with friends, entrepreneurs, and officials, and he makes it clear that he has read every book and seen every movie on his subject. Those who know the city will have the advantage, but Ulin casts his net widely, so most readers will enjoy his observations of Los Angeles in literary and popular art as well as his thoughtful personal views."—Kirkus

Like Rebecca Solnit's classic Wanderlust, David L. Ulin's Sidewalking is part personal narrative and part investigation of the city of angels as both idea and environment. Sidewalking is many things: a discussion of Los Angeles as urban space, a history of the city’s built environment, a meditation on the author’s relationship to the city, and a rumination on the art of urban walking. Exploring Los Angeles through the soles of his feet, Ulin gets at the experience of its street life, drawing from urban theory, pop culture, and literature.

Advance Praise for SIDEWALKING

"A profound and poetic book. It is a meditation not only on the strange and marvelous nature of Los Angeles but also on the nature of history, memory, and community itself. This is nonfiction writing at its very best."—Susan Orlean

“Sidewalking will cement David Ulin’s already well-deserved reputation as a leading literary critic. Like a good, long walk, his book is an exercise in patience, observation, and reflection. At the end of the journey, you feel you’ve been someplace—and you feel illuminated and enlightened."—Héctor Tobar

"An inspiring challenge to engage with urban life, Sidewalking raises unprejudiced questions about city and 'city'—the built environment and the individual’s own experience of it. L.A.'s famous sprawl and very human neighborhoods, its uneasy meld of public and private spaces, its legendary gridlock, its organic and artificial environments, all feature in what is no less than the teasing out of a new and nuanced interpretation of the nature of 'urbanity’ itself."—Janet Fitch

"I see this book as a benign remake of [the movie] Falling Down. In this version, Michael Douglas, after abandoning his car, has the good fortune to bump into David Ulin, who not only offers to accompany him on his journey home but also suggests a few extensive detours. In the course of their walking-talk tour, Douglas learns that he has the good fortune to reside in a fascinating city and goes on to live a fulfilled—and inquiring—life." —Geoff Dyer

"There are so many lines in this book I’d like to have at my fingertips, so many rational, logical, wholly original arguments for why Los Angeles is deeper and more soulful than it can seem, that I almost wish I could keep it in my pocket for whenever an outsider coughs up the usual hoary insults. As it is, Sidewalking has taken up welcome and necessary residence in my mind. And, to be precise, David Ulin doesn’t argue on behalf of his adopted city. He observes, he challenges, he shows his abiding and complicated love for the place. Which is only right, since when it comes to L.A.’s status as the most surprising and mysterious city in America, there is no argument." —Meghan Daum

David L Ulin is the author or editor of eight previous books, including The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time and the Library of America’s Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology, which won a California Book Award. A 2015 Guggenheim Fellow, he is book critic, and former book editor, of the Los Angeles Times.

Previous Publishers: Japan/Kashiwashobo

www.hillnadell.com [email protected] Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Rights – Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

Non-Fiction Look Lean Roll: Manuscript available Fall 2015 A Woman, A Motorcycle, and Plunging into Risk by Bernadette Murphy

Counterpoint May 2016

A cross-country chronicle of transformation and renewal that started on the back of a 550-pound motorcycle

What happens when women in midlife step out of what's predictable? For Bernadette Murphy, learning to ride a motorcycle at forty-eight becomes the catalyst that transforms her from a settled wife and professor with three teenage children into a woman on her own. The confidence she gained from mastering a new skill and conquering her fears gave her the courage to face deeper issues in her own life and start taking risks. It is a fact that men and women alike become more risk averse in our later years—which according to psychologists and neuroscience is exactly what we should not do. And Murphy stresses that while hers is a story of transformation using a physical risk, emotional and educational risks can serve the same beneficial purpose for other women.

Murphy uses her own story to explore the larger idea of how risk changes our brain chemistry, how certain personality types embrace dangerous behavior and why it energizes them, and why women's expectations change once estrogen levels drop after the childbearing years. She also explores the idea of women and risk in pop culture —why there are so few stories of the conquering heroine (instead of hero). Surely Thelma and Louise driving off the cliff should not be our only pop culture reference for women finding true freedom.

With scientific research and journalistic interviews weaving through a page-turning, road trip narrative, Look Lean Roll is a compelling look at how one woman changed her life and found deeper meaning out on the open road.

PRAISE FOR BERNADETTE MURPHY

"Zen and the Art of Knitting is crafted like a handmade sweater, with great texture and beauty and love. Bernadette Murphy knits together creativity, spirituality, and daily life, letting us see the rich and wondrous fabric that connects all of it, all of us, 'in a piece.' This is a book readers will want to wrap themselves up in for comfort, for inspiration, for affirmation of the healing, centering, power of the art." —Gayle Brandeis, author of Fruitflesh

"Bernadette Murphy explores the now-radical notion that in the smallest, most mundane gestures, we may find a kind of grace. This book traces her discovery with openness and faith." —David L. Ulin, author of Sidewalking

"The book is full of lore, technical tips, colorful needle-wielding characters, and, ahem, plain old good yarns. Knitting, in Murphy's hands, is more than a metaphor; it is tangible, proof of the inner-connectedness of all living things." —Michelle Huneven, author of Off Course

''A wise, illuminating book, for knitters and non-knitters alike."—Tara Ison, author of Reeling Through Life

Bernadette Murphy has published three books of creative nonfiction: The Tao Gals’ Guide to Real Estate (with Michelle Huneven); The Knitter’s Gift; and the bestselling Zen and the Art of Knitting (2002) in which she uses memoir and reportage to explore the connection between fiber arts, creativity, and spirituality. She served for six years as a weekly book critic for the Los Angeles Times. Her personal narratives and essays on literature have appeared in The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, Manifest Station, BOOK Magazine, Ms. Magazine, LA Weekly, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times Magazine, and elsewhere. She currently serves as core faculty in creative nonfiction at the Antioch University Los Angeles MFA program. Learn more at www.bernadette-murphy.com.

www.hillnadell.com [email protected] Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Rights – Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

Non-Fiction The Grim Sleeper: Proposal and sample chapter The Lost Women of South Central available by Christine Pelisek

Counterpoint June 2016

The definitive book on the biggest homicide case in Los Angeles history told by the fearless reporter who broke the story

Christine Pelisek – petite, blonde, Canadian – seems the least likely reporter to have broken the story on the longest running serial killer west of the Mississippi. But in 2008 she did just that with her cover story for LA Weekly, shedding light on a suspected killer of women in South Central Los Angeles who had been active since the 1980s. Dubbing him "The Grim Sleeper" for his possible long break between murders, Christine was the only one who put the pieces together after the L.A. coroner reluctantly handed her a list of thirty-eight possibly linked homicides in 2006.

Alleged serial killer Lonnie Franklin Jr. lived in South Central Los Angeles in the same neighborhood where his victims were found. He was a husband, a father, and neighborhood fixture. The victims were all women, many prostitutes or drug addicts discarded like trash during a time the city was overrun with crime, drugs, and racial strife. Franklin is currently charged with ten murders, but investigators think he is responsible for at least twenty more. The Grim Sleeper is the only book on this case and the author has exclusive access to the LAPD detectives who finally caught Franklin using controversial and costly familial DNA, autopsy reports, and case files. She has attended every aspect of the impending trial and has spent years tracking down the victim's stories through their surviving friends and family.

The Grim Sleeper captures a singular case but also tells a bigger story: about urban homicide investigations in areas beset by poverty, gang violence, and despair; about how a serial killer could continue his macabre work for so long in part due to society's lack of concern for his chosen victims; and about the power and tenacity of those that refused to let the case go cold.

Given the wide awareness of the case, and the recent Lifetime movie and HBO Documentary on it, The Grim Sleeper will be one of the most important publications of the summer season.

Christine Pelisek is an award-winning investigative reporter who has been covering crime for almost fifteen years. She got her big break at LA Weekly and has since covered national stories for The Daily Beast, 20/20, and is now the crime reporter for People Magazine. She's been profiled in the Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Columbia Journalism Review, Ottawa Sun and has been interviewed as a crime expert by CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, Headline News and the Nancy Grace Show. She lives in Los Angeles.

www.hillnadell.com [email protected] Hill Nadell Literary Agency

Rights – Frankfurt Book Fair 2015

Non-Fiction On Trails Proposal available now by Robert Moor Manuscript available Fall 2015

Simon & Schuster Fall 2016

Rob Moor walked the Appalachian trail first across the US and then followed it to its origin in Morocco. He explores what trails meant for the earliest forms of life, for ants as they follow each other, the trails left by animals as hunters try to track them, the trails we make in daily life across nature and urban areas and the trails created by the internet and electronic world.

Rights sold to: Aurum Press UK Rights Sold: UK/Aurum Press

Non-Fiction A Stitch of Time: Manuscript available Portrait of a Mind in Construction Winter 2015 by Lauren Marks

Simon & Schuster 2016

In September 2007 Lauren Marks, then a 27 year old theater graduate student at NYU, was performing at the Edinburgh Fringe festival when she had a brain aneurysm. She woke up with aphasia and without the ability to speak, read or communicate. A STITCH OF TIME follows the period of a year from the aneurysm’s rupture as Lauren writes her way back into language and the world. Like Brain on Fire or My Stroke of Insight, Lauren Marks is able to combine personal memoir with neurological science as she tries to convey what aphasia meant for her: "Aphasia is peculiar. It is determined by an absence more than a presence. For that reason, aphasia defies description. It is like…nothing. Everything. Down to its very essence, aphasia is unspeakable." The memoir heavily relies on the use of her journals as raw materials in the telling of its story since these documents produced during Lauren's most language-impaired periods—allow readers to glimpse the intricate machinations of a mind in construction.

www.hillnadell.com [email protected]