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News/Winter 2010

NEW AWARDS FOR THE NEW YEAR

Robert E. Shepard Agency authors lost no time in winning new awards as 2010 arrived. Mark Caro's The Foie Gras Wars, which had rounded out the old year by winning the Great Lakes Book Award, was one of two Agency titles to take prizes as best American works in the 15-year-old Gourmand Awards, which will be conferred at the inaugural Paris Cookbook Fair in February. Caro's book won in the "Best Book for Food Professionals" category, and Vivienne Sosnowski's When the Rivers Ran Red won for "Best Book on New World Wines." The titles will now be eligible for the "Best of the Best" awards, which will also be announced in Paris February 11. Robert Shepard noted that winning not one but two prizes to be awarded at a cookbook fair was "a singular achievement," since the Agency doesn't represent cookbooks! But books about food and wine, and the history and politics surrounding them, have been familiar constituents on the list. Caro's book looks at the fascinating history and production of foie gras as it examines the public uproar over the delicacy's banning in Chicago (since reversed) and elsewhere, and what this uproar tells us about how we take on "issues." Sosnowski considered Prohibition of another kind in When the Rivers Ran Red, a history of the 18^th Amendment's devastating effect on the winemaking families of California--and how they struggled to survive until Repeal came in 1933.

The welcome arrival of the Gourmand awards was, if anything, exceeded by the arrival of science fiction's most celebrated award on the Agency's entirely non-fiction list. Robert Shepard has long represented the non-fiction projects of author John Scalzi, who is certainly best known for his bestselling novels (including the acclaimed Old Man's War series). This gifted author and commentator's latest non-fiction outing, however, is hardly less impressive: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded: A Decade of Whatever, 1998-2008, a "best of the best" compendium of the celebrated blog, one of the Web's most visited. Your Hate Mail... won the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Related Book.

And while he is already the the recipient of many writing awards, Agency author John Moir (Return of the Condor) took home a major one recently: the Grand Prize in Writer's Digest magazine's 78^th annual writing competition. Moir won for an article entitled "Condors in a Coalmine?" which described how lead poisoning--suffered when the great raptors accidentally consume lead hunting shot--points toward similar dangers facing humans who consume hunter-killed meat. On the Agency's list, Moir is the author of Return of the Condor, which describes the dicey--but successful--effort to rescue North America's largest bird from extinction.

OUR CALIFORNIA: PART 2 IN AN OCCASIONAL SERIES

by Robert E. Shepard

As the new year began, I could already look back on the Agency's first quarter in Southern California, following 15 years in the North. Time flies quickly when you're studying new maps, furnishing a new house, and getting a literary agency back up to speed after a couple of weeks' hiatus! Many have asked how the transition has gone, and I'm pleased to report that it's gone very smoothly, indeed. As I wrote a few months ago, California is a place that embraces newcomers easily, and this has proven equally true for "internal transplants." I must say that the friendliness of Angelenos has been a pleasant surprise, and now I'm embarrassed that I ever could have doubted this would be the case. We're fortunate to find ourselves surrounded by warmhearted, smart neighbors who care deeply about their city. If any reminders were needed that stereotypes are never a good idea, consider the presence, in our neighborhood, of a gem of an independent bookseller, with the admirably Joyceian name Portrait of a Bookstore. Every town should have a mecca for booklovers just like this one, with its well-chosen selection of titles and cozy chairs in which to peruse them (the adjoining cafe, Aroma, is another neighborhood favorite), and a caring staff who are ready, willing, and able with recommendations. We're fortunate, too, that two daily newspapers continue to enlighten, investigate, and entertain here, and that the Los Angeles Times still maintains a serious and robust--if somewhat diminished--book review each Sunday. Los Angeles even hosts the nation's largest book festival each April. With a distinguished literary history and a potent ongoing literary life our adoptive home is no slouch when it comes to books and writing. It's nice to be able to quote the state motto even in the context of literary life: "Eureka" . . . "I have found it."