Jennifer Papale Rignani
Red: A Curious History of the Rarest Hair Color
Rights Sold:
- University Press of Florida (North America)

Rignani, award-winning journalist for the intellectually curious, combs cultural geography for signs of the unique and fiery demeanor of redheads. From Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" to Lana Lang of "Smallville," Rignani investigates culture, from classic to pop, for the markers of this stereotype and what they reveal about society. Red: A Curious History of the Rarest Hair Color (University Press of Florida) tells the story of how and why this physical trait has so influenced the cultural psyche, such as in art, literature, movies, science and politics. Throughout history, redheads have been stereotyped as people whose emotional temperament is influenced by their physical appearance. This color of rage, passion and love has forever marked redheads as hauling these emotional attributes. As a result, this stereotype may have become somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. That redheads are treated as having what the Indian medicinal practice of Ayurveda call a Pitta temperament, or being easily irritated yet driven, they may in turn have developed the emotional temperament on which they've been judged.

Michael S. East
Behind the Badge: The Story of One Cop's Fight for Survival in a Dying City
Rights Available:
- World

Author Michael S. East, whose writing has appeared in True Blue II (St. Martin’s Press), arrives in Saginaw, Michigan, a naïve, “wannabe” cop on a cold and blustery November day in 1993. The night of his arrival, as drunken thugs try to break down his hotel room door, the author realizes his entire world is about to change, which he documents in Behind the Badge: The Story of One Cop's Fight for Survival in a Dying City. This introduction into a new sense of reality begins immediately as East is thrown into the world of violence and racial division which envelopes the city he will soon call home. A brush with death inside the twisted metal of a burning, bullet-riddled car; a missing man’s body found lying in bed, entombed in cement; an elderly woman’s stand against the drug-dealing punks that control her neighborhood—these become the daily routine as East transforms from innocent civilian into disillusioned street cop. Along the way, East searches the abuse-filled memories of his own childhood, and struggles with the realization that as a police officer he still cannot change the course of destiny. The author presses through his final years policing the oppressive streets of a rabidly violent city. He struggles not only with the physical and emotional strain of the job, but also with the economic conditions which have decimated his police department and his will to continue the fight. Despite personal loss, and the overwhelming feeling of hopelessness which shadows him daily, East needs to decide his life’s course, whether he should see his career to its conclusion.

Brandy Purdy
Vengeance: A Novel of Jane Boleyn
Rights Sold:
- Kensington Books (World XTurkey)
- Alfa Yayin Grubu (Turkey)

There was room for only one woman in George Boleyn’s heart—his sister, the mercurial and fascinating Anne Boleyn, who was destined to change history and wear a crown. To his adoring wife, Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, he was cold and indifferent. When Anne Boleyn failed to give Henry VIII the son she had promised him, and he was tiring of her tart tongue and tantrums, false charges of adultery were hastily concocted. Jane Boleyn provided the crowning touch when she accused her husband and his beloved sister of incest. Both died upon the scaffold. Jane Boleyn paid dearly for her treachery. She was left alone, shunned and friendless, until wild, sweet, wanton Katherine Howard danced into her life and became Henry’s fifth queen. When Katherine, disgusted by the obese and impotent King’s fumbling attempts to make love to her, took a lusty young lover, Jane Boleyn helped them meet. Then when the truth came out, she was the first to betray them. As she sits in the Tower of London, being tormented by the ghosts of George and Anne Boleyn, and awaiting her own appointment with the headsman’s axe, Jane takes up her pen. Vengeance: A Novel of Jane Boleyn is her story.

John Mastromarino
Dante's Journey
Rights Available:
- World

John Mastromarino's Dante's Journey is a new vision of Dante's classic, Inferno. Murdered Boston police detective Joseph Dante searches through the circles of Hell for his family's killer, drug dealer Filippo Argenti, with the help of his mysterious guide, Virgil DiMini. Joe doesn't realize that he faces the dual task of saving his own immortal soul.  

John Mastromarino is the author of fifteen screenplays, four of which have been optioned by production studios or reached advanced finals in Nichols or Austin screenwriting competitions. Some of Mastromarino’s most popular screenplays include Faces, in which an art gallery owner tries to find her boyfriend’s killer after she’s attacked and left with a rare condition known as “face blindness,” and Silent Hail, about a Fort Leavenworth Chaplain in the last months of World War II who tries to make a connection with seven condemned German POW submariners and piece together the mysterious and shocking reasons behind their death sentence.

Erik Rush
The Divided States of America: How Polar Politics is Destroying the Democracy
Rights Available:
- World

Never before has there been a more poignant case than presently exists for the current level of disillusionment and cynicism amongst Americans or reason for their fundamental misgivings concerning the legitimacy of the Federal government as a whole. Over the last few years, it has become apparent to more and more Americans that some of the most challenging and dangerous situations we now face—the War on Terror and the Border Crisis to name just two—have been brought on over decades by series of administrations spanning the political ideological spectrum. Their principals, in the main, have abandoned the concept of representative government; operating out of self-interest, fear and greed, they increasingly ignore the best interests of the American people for self-aggrandizement, petty legacies, perks, power and money. Forced to play a public relations shell game, average Americans have become so divided and confused, their ability to rectify the situation seems scant at best. In his latest book, The Divided States of America: How Polar Politics is Destroying the Democracy, Rush analyzes American politicians’ evolution into an elite class that governs against the will of the people, voter apathy and the inordinate focus on extreme factions of the political right and left.

Rush is a regular guest on Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes and America’s Election Headquarters, CNN’s Paula Zahn Now and is a veteran of numerous national radio appearances. On February 28, 2007, Rush brought the story of Democrat presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s militant pastor Jeremiah Wright to the attention of national news media during an appearance on Hannity and Colmes.

Mark D. Williams
Rivercrossing: How I Learned About Fatherhood by Fly-Fishing the Waters of the World
Rights Available:
- World

As Williams approaches fifty, with the recent loss of his father, with whom he had decades of acrimonious fighting, he now reunites with his once-estranged daughter and recounts his lifetime of fishing the world's most prized streams from America and Canada, to the Caribbean and Europe in Rivercrossing: How I Learned About Fatherhood by Fly-Fishing the Waters of the World. In the process of finding the elusive catch, Williams learns about the regions' cultures, food and people and, in the process, himself and his relationship with his daughter.

Williams, one of the nation's foremost fishing authorities, is the author of So Many Fish, So Little Time (HarperCollins) and has written articles for numerous national magazines and newspapers including Dallas Morning News, SPORT Magazine, ESPNoutdoors.com, Texas Sporting Journal, Baseball Digest, Texas Rangers' Program, Beckett’s, Cowboys and Indians, Southwest Fly Fishing, Texas Sportsman, Texas Outdoors, Texas Fish and Game, Backpacker, Men’s Health, Men’s Journal, Flyfishing and Flytying Journal, Bass Pro Shop, Orvis News, Rocky Mountain Game and Fish, among others.