As every year, Pontas travels to New York to meet editors and scouts in their own offices and take the pulse of the publishing industry. This year, Maria Cardona was the one attending on behalf of the Pontas team.
There are more editors and imprints in the US eager to acquire international fiction, both in English and in translation. In three days of meetings, Maria met with 30 editors and 3 scouts, chatting about our authors, titles, as well as getting a better understanding of the publishing industry in America at the moment and what each and one of them is looking for.
HarperCollins is located in an impressive building in the buzzing Finantial District. It was a great opportunity to know more about their new imprints, such as Graydon House Books, Hanover Square Press and Park Row Books, as well as the more established ones, such as Custom House, Ecco and Harper. Also, it was a great opportunity to discuss publication plans in the US for Janice Pariat (The Nine-Chambered Heart) and Melba Escobar (House of Beauty), whose novels were recently acquired in two World English rights deals by HarperCollins.
As they prepare to move to the Random House offices in Broadway, it was really nice to get down to Hudson river and see the Penguin offices, after having had lunch with Katie McGuire from the independent publishing house Pegasus Books, who are publishing The Architecture of Loss by ZP Dala in July 2017.
The Flatiron is one of New York's most iconic buildings, and for now, also the house of most of Macmillan's imprints. A great morning full of meetings with editors at St Martin's Press, Flatiron Books (publishers of Sara Lövestam's Wonderful Feels Like This) and Thomas Dunne. Pontas author Daniela Tully was also in New York, and we enjoyed a lovely meeting with her editors, Stephen Power and Janine Barlow at Thomas Dunne/St Martin's Press, to discuss publication plans for her debut novel Hotel on Shadow Lake in April 2018. Right after, Daniela Tully gave an interview to the literary magazine JotDown at Madison Square Park.
We also enjoyed meetings at Farrar, Straus & Giroux, where we had the pleasure to meet with Jenna Johnson and Sarah Crichton and later that day we had a great espresso at Maria B. Campbell Associates offices. In the same Flatiron district, and gearing up for publication, we also met with Soho Press, who are publishing the award-winning debut novel Rainbirds by Clarissa Goenawan in March 2018.
We had a great meeting at Skyhorse headquarters, just the week when The Samurai of Seville by John J. Healey was out in North America. We had also a great chat about James Terry and JJ Bola, as both their novels, Heir Apparent and No Place To Call Home respectively, will be published in April 2018. Last but not least, we couldn't miss to visit Random House and Simon & Schuster offices in Midtown!
As well as visiting the famous Strand book store, and enjoying a lovely meal with several editors and Kelly Farber in The Village. A great end to an enjoyable and productive week in New York City!
