Spring 2021 Rights Guide For further information, please contact: Allison Devereux [email protected] The Cheney Agency 39 West 14th Street, Suite 403 New York, NY 10011 t: (212) 277-8007 www.cheneyagency.com Twitter: @CheneyAgency Contents NON-FICTION Latest Deals: The Face Race by Kashmir Hill The Storm by Luke Mogelson We Survived the Night by Julian Brave NoiseCat Out Now: The Daughters of Kobani by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon Hot Seat by Jeff Immelt The Spymaster of Baghdad by Margaret Coker What Becomes a Legend Most by Philip Gefter To Be Honest by Michael Leviton Oak Flat by Lauren Redniss The Biggest Bluff by Maria Konnikova A Very Stable Genius by Carol Leonnig & Philip Rucker Publishing Soon: An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel & Cecilia Kang After the Fall by Ben Rhodes America on Fire by Elizabeth Hinton Power, for All by Julie Battilana & Tiziana Casciaro The Reason for the Darkness of the Night by John Tresch Original Sisters by Anita Kunz Sensational by Kim Todd FICTION Crooked Hallelujah by Kelli Jo Ford In the Valley by Ron Rash Destination Wedding by Diksha Basu Age of Consent by Amanda Brainerd SELECTED BACKLIST Non-Fiction Latest Deals The Face Race The Rise of Facial Recognition Technology—and the End of Privacy as We Know It Kashmir Hill Sold at auction, in a major deal From award-winning New York Times technology reporter Kashmir Hill comes a powerful warning about the ways in which technology can erode and ultimately destroy notions of privacy, one that we ignore at our own peril. Last January, Kashmir Hill published a bombshell front-page story about a mysterious start-up named Clearview AI, which had quietly been selling an app that could identify any individual using just a photo of his or her face. The app was startlingly effective and hugely popular with its customers (primarily police departments), but it was also wide- Random House (2023) reaching in its implications—suddenly anyone with a phone could snap Territory: North America a photo and potentially find out a person’s name or address in seconds. Editor: Hilary Redmon Material: Proposal Through the course of her investigation, Hill was shocked to find that Agent: Adam Eaglin facial recognition technology is far more advanced than most of us realize, and already in the hands of major companies and countries Rights sold: across the globe. The story of Clearview revealed that blurry snaps on a UK: Simon & Schuster stranger’s iPhone or security footage on a public street could, today, be used by anyone to track our identities and whereabouts in public. The tech we’ve long been reading about in the likes of Philip K. Dick science- fiction, the kind that foretells the end of anonymity as we know it—it’s already here. Told, in part, through the riveting exposé of Clearview, The Face Race will be the definitive investigation into the rise of facial recognition technology and its implications on society and the future of privacy. Using the engaging, incisive writing she’s become known for in her popular pieces at the NY Times and Gizmodo, Hill has crafted a fast- paced and character-driven narrative that looks into how this tech was developed and where it could be going. Hill will reveal how widely these capabilities are already available, and examine the ways that tech companies, such as Google and Facebook, and governments around the globe are already using and abusing this technology on their customers and citizens. Kashmir Hill is a technology reporter at The New York Times. She has been writing about privacy since 2009, when there was not yet a “privacy beat” in journalism—she helped invent it. Hill has a massive social following (270k+ Twitter followers), and has worked and written for a number of publications including The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Gizmodo, Popular Science, Forbes, and many others. The Storm Luke Mogelson Sold in a pre-empt, in a major deal The definitive, eye-witness account of the insurrection on the US Capitol, from war correspondent and New Yorker contributor Luke Mogelson Luke was on the ground at the riot on the US Capitol on January 6th. His account of events in The New Yorker, along with footage he shot from the capitol, was immediately lauded as an astonishing first draft of history. But the coup attempt was not an isolated incident of violence and rebellion. Rather, it was the result of a pivotal season of anxiety, unrest, and sickness in this country’s recent past, beginning on Memorial Day, 2020, with an historic popular uprising for racial justice. In The Storm, Luke plots out how the destruction of police precincts Penguin Press (2022) in Minneapolis after officers killed George Floyd became a catalyst Territory: North America for a series of events that culminated in open rebellion at the Capitol. Editor: Scott Mayers It will track the dynamic between the bottom-up—the far right Material: Proposal militias and their ilk—and the top-down—Trump and the media’s Agent: Alice Whitwham incitements— in the context of a pandemic, an election, and a social justice movement from the left that became the ideal bogeyman— Rights sold: weaving the crises of the past year into the definitive account of our UK: Riverrun time. China: CITIC Luke is among the preeminent war correspondents of his generation. There is no one who gets closer to the front line. He is a lyrical writer, whose unparalleled attention to detail keeps you turning the page, as he writes about the most complex subjects with balance and compassion. Through his intimate, electric reporting, Luke’s book makes clear that the white nationalists and radical conservatives for whom democratic institutions are the enemy are still out there, not daunted but galvanized. The Storm is a key to understanding how we got here, and what comes next. Luke Mogelson is the author of the acclaimed story collection These Heroic, Happy Dead (2016) and a contributing writer to The New Yorker. He has been nominated for three National Magazine Awards, and won once. He has also won a Livingston Award and a George K. Polk Award. We Survived the Night Julian Brave NoiseCat Pre-empted in a major deal The author named a “TIME100 Next” emerging leader, alongside Dua Lipa, Amanda Gorman, Chloé Zhao, Luka Doncic, and others An ambitious work of literary journalism, and a poignant memoir about contemporary indigenous life Through generations of deprivation and genocide, Julian Brave NoiseCat’s people greeted each other and the day with a simple but profound acknowledgement: you survived the night. These solemn words reflect the plight and suffering of indigenous communities over many centuries. Because the facts of this history are unsettling, narratives about Natives tend to be confined to the past or neatly packaged for the present. But today, indigenous peoples are rewriting their own narratives, and reclaiming their languages, cultures, and Knopf (2023) lands. Territory: North America Editor: Jonathan Segal The result of years of reporting and thinking, We Survived the Night Material: Proposal adds a major new voice to this indigenous literature, examining the Agent: Alice Whitwham history, culture, and present of Native people, but also race, climate change, the legacy of colonialism, and the complex realities Indians Rights sold: face in the 21st century. These realities shine through the story of UK: Profile Julian’s relationship with his troubled but brilliant father, an artist France: Albin Michel and alcoholic who grew up impoverished on the Canim Lake Indian reserve in British Columbia, the kind of story that, in its passionate specificity, becomes universal. Inspired by the belief that indigenous peoples can contribute to understanding and addressing the world's most pressing challenges, We Survived the Night combines autobiographical precision, wide- ranging reporting, and deep erudition into an unforgettable new voice. Julian Brave NoiseCat is the Vice President of Policy & Strategy with the think tank Data for Progress, the Narrative Change Director at The Natural History Museum, a fellow at the Type Media Center, an artist, and an activist. He has consulted for the UN and shaped progressive platforms like the Green New Deal. Julian’s journalism has been a finalist for the Livingston Award and the Canadian National Magazine award, and appeared in print or online in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, The Guardian, and many more. He studied History at Columbia and Oxford University. Out Now The Daughters of Kobani A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice Gayle Tzemach Lemmon An instant New York Times bestseller Optioned for TV by Hillary Clinton An Amazon Best Book of February 2021 The extraordinary story of the women who took on the Islamic State and won In 2014, northeastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centered on women's rights. The Islamic State by then had swept across vast swaths of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it. From an unlikely showdown in the town of Kobani emerged an all female fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria. In the process, these women spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting—house by house, street by street, town by town—the men who bought and sold them and their Penguin Press (February 2021) sisters. Territory: North America Editor: Emily Cunningham Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani Material: Finished copies is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that Agent: Elyse Cheney improbably became the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria and across the globe.