Baldi News

2023, the Year of the Rabbit brings news of the following:

Tom Santopietro (author of THE SOUND OF MUSIC STORY and WHY TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD MATTERS) celebrates the 50th anniversary of the movie, THE WAY WE WERE. Read THE WAY WE WERE: The Making of a Romantic Classic/Applause Books. Are you an Audrey Hepburn fan? Stay tuned!

#ThreeMinutesALengthening is The Film Critics choice as best first documentary. Based Glenn Kurtz’s  critically acclaimed THREE MINUTES IN POLAND, the movie continues to gather other nominations awards left and right. Follow this link to see the trailer for Bianca Stitger’s Oscar-contending documentary Three Minutes: A Lengthening and where it is streaming.

YES, I CAN SAY THAT! Based on Judy Gold’s book published by Harper Collins, the play will be performed by Gold at Primary Stages from March 4 thru April 16, 2023. The one-woman show is written by Judy Gold and Eddie Sarfaty, directed by BD Wong. Follow this link to order your tickets at 59e59.org. Occasional surprise guest talk-backers/back-talkers!
You never know who…
Read the book/see the play.
B there or B square.

In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find…………..
a new hybrid covid, a Starbucks Union in Buffalo!
and many more books to write, publish, review, read and movies to see.

On May 12th, 2022, Mary Cappello (SWALLOW) will appear together with Mary Roach (GULP) with their host, Brandy Shillace, for her Peculiar Book Club podcast, live-streamed to YouTube @ 7 pm: “Two Mary’s, a Gulp, and a Swallow”

Upcoming Kia Corthron’s MOON AND THE MARS 2022 events include The Tenement Museum and the Irish Arts Center. Follow this link for details.

Stay tuned for Amy Godine’s THE BLACK FOREST: THE LOST HISTORY, EMBATTLED MEMORY, AND STUBBORN LEGACY OF BLACK FARMERS IN THE ADIRONDACKS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR to be published by Cornell University Press. Over twenty years of research, Godine’s book turns American Civil War history upside down.

What makes America great? Writing and research. Robert(a) Marshall’s AMERICAN TRICKSTER, the Carlos Castaneda biography, will be published by University of California Press. What did Castaneda look like? Who will play him in the movie? I need to know.

Want to get away from it all and step it into the days of yore? Take a look at ILE DE FRANCE and the Golden Age of Transatlantic Travel, High Style on the High Seas by Tom Kepler, just published by the Lyons Press.

THREE MINUTES IN POLAND: A Lengthening, directed by Bianca Stigter and based on Glenn Kurtz’s book will be shown at Sundance Film Festival and other venues. Stay tuned for other media tie-ins. Follow this link to read a New York Times story about the movie.

William J. Mann’s much anticipated BOGIE & BACALL will be published by Harper Collins.

Are you searching for a new religion? Tom Pruiksma’s translation from Tamil of THE KURAL: Tiruvalluvar’s Tirukkural is inspired. Comparable to the Tao te Ching, the tweet-like nuggets of wisdom are skillfully rendered and to the point. Beacon publishes in early 2022.

Kate Rounds’ CATBOAT ROAD is a wonderful, fresh lesbian take on MRS. Robinson. Bywater publishes in September 2022.

AUDREY HEPBURN: A Life in 63 Scenes celebrates Hepburn’s movie, film and lifestyle in an impressionistic tribute. Applause/Rowman Books publishes Tom Santopietro’s book in 2022.

What a difference a year makes. Are you safe? Vaccinated? Anti vaccer? Waiting for
the booster shot? Working remotely? Wearing a mask? Back to school? Hybrid work? Write about it!

Fordham University Press reissues CALLED BACK: My Reply to Cancer, My Return to Life, with a new afterword by Mary Cappello!

Check out:
• Lecture as an art. An exclusive interview with writer Mary Cappello.
• A conversation with Dr. Mary Cappello

Follow this link to read Patty Dann’s essay about pandemic habits.

7 Stories’ MOON & THE MARS by Kia Corthron is an August 2021 Powell’s pick of the month selection!

THREE MINUTES IN POLAND by Glenn Kurtz is now a documentary produced by Steve McQueen and premiering in Cannes summer 2021 and set to open stateside in September. » read more

Agate published MAY WE SUGGEST by Alison Pearlman and it continues to impress:

• Did the Pandemic Kill Off the Restaurant Menu?
• The Behavioral Economics of Restaurant Menus
• Menu Mind Control

So much to write during the time of COVID-19. Please read ALL agency websites closely. Be best! Edit, edit, edit. Is your work as lean, mean & clean as it can be? Tell the truth.

7 Stories jumps high to acquire Kia Corthron’s second novel, MOON & THE MARS.

Forget COVID-19 travel bans: Enjoy flying while reading THE WRIGHT SISTER by Patty Dann. It is the perfect book club book. Follow this link to to hear WYSO’s feature on Book Nook.

Judy Gold writes about saying the unthinkable while living through the unbelievable. Click here to read the New York Times story about Provincetown, Gold’s home away from home.

YES, I CAN SAY THAT is solid Gold, the perfect audiobook, featured in the Times.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice practice practice. How do you get published? Read Poets & Writers at pw.org and follow this link to read how Colin Hester’s DEATH & THE BUTTERFLY publication came to be…

Can’t wait for the 2021 Joe Okonkwo short story collection? Click here to see the cover and description.

Alison Pearlman reasons how/where/what/why you will be eating in the year 2525, sorry I meant 2023. Follow this link to take a listen.

In May, longtime client Peregrine White Jr. died from complications of cancer and COVID-19. His popular THE IDEA FACTORY: Learning to Think at MIT continues to be read by engineering students. Follow this link to read his obituary.

TINSELTOWN by William J. Mann is in development with Spectrum Originals! Read more here and here.

What is a weekend husband? Follow this link to find out in Patty Dann’s brilliant “About Love” column. How did Patty Dann come to write THE WRIGHT SISTER due out from Harper Perennial this summer? Click here to hear about it.

Reading is fundamental in the time of COVID-19.

Can’t go to the theater? Do you wanna dance?

Read DANCING MAN by Bob Avian, written with Tom Santopietro. Reading about dancing is the perfect proven armchair antidote for life in the time of
COVID-19.

DANCING MAN press:

• Bob Avian Memoir, DANCING MAN, Will be Released This Spring
• Broadway Choreographer Bob Avian Reveals 5 Secrets From the Making of A Chorus Line and More
• Dancing Man. Bob Avian’s six decades on Broadway.
• talkinbroadway.com book review
• Inside a storied Broadway legend’s life and his friend’s tragic death
• ‘Dancing Man’ publishes memoir of Broadway choreography

Can’t travel? Read Robin Hemley’s BORDERLINE CITIZEN (UNebraska) – a perfect world atlas of stories where everyone gets along, even on the border. » read a review

This summer 2020 reading offers two lyrical historical novels: Colin Hester’s DEATH & THE BUTTERFLY is coming from Counterpoint Press in June. Patty Dann’s THE WRIGHT SISTER, published by Harper Perennial in August, will make you rethink the events surrounding 9/11 and the Wright Brothers. Just as soon as Bill Mann’s THE CONTENDER (check out The 15 most fascinating revelations in The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando) hit book shelves last fall, he signed a contract with Harper Collins for BACALL & BOGIE, the penultimate hetero normative duo is due in 2023. THE CONTENDER paperback is due out this fall from Harper Collins. Historical nonfiction is in the air — Tom Kepler’s riveting narrative about the history of the stately Il de France ocean liner is signed with the Lyons Press. Fordham University Press’ Empire State Series issues Matthew Spady’s THE NEIGHBORHOOD MANHATTAN FORGOT: Audubon Park and the Families Who Shaped It.

Can’t say what you really think? If so, it is imperative that you read Dey Street’s YES, I CAN SAY THAT: When They Come for the Comedians We are All in Trouble by Judy Gold due out this summer.

Wash your hands, get out the vote and work by remote.

Spring Awards, grants, & finalists: William E. Glassley is the 2019 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing in Book Form for A WILDER TIME: Notes From a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice. Blanche McCrary Boyd is a 2019 PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist for TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN RACIST. Alexandra Chasin is a 2019 Guggenheim award nonfiction grant recipient.

Peace & Justice for 2019, the Year of the Pig! Gorgeous paperback edition of Blanche McCrary Boyd’s TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN RACIST due out this spring. “…a wildly ambitious page-turner that defies easy categorization.”
– Kirkus Reviews

This Fall Harper Collins publishes Bill Mann’s THE CONTENDER: The Story of Marlon Brando. Those lips & eyes. Where is the motorcycle? Stay tuned.

MAY WE SUGGEST by Alison Pearlman continues to make news with foodies an cultural historians. Check out:

• Restaurant Menus and the Art of Persuasion
• Can I Get a “McGangBang?” on The Weird World of Secret Menus
• What’s in a Menu? by Charles Perry

Tom Santopietro’s long standing love of musicals make him the perfect writer for choreographer Bob Avian’s memoir, DANCING MAN to be published by University Mississippi Press. Full of theater history and gossip, Avian was the choreographer behind hits like CHORUS LINE and MISS SAIGON. See The New York Times’ How ‘A Chorus Line’ Veterans Pass It on to a New Generation

While you are waiting to get a Broadway ticket for TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD, make sure you read WHY TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD MATTERS (St. Martins) by Santopietro. Perfect for times like these. First time a Baldi Agency book gets reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review!!! Follow this link to read the review.

William E. Glassley’s A WILDER TIME (Bellevue Literary Press) got the best reviews ever & the best pull quote known to mankind: “The mind of a scientist, the heart of a philosopher, and the soul of a poet,” from The Washington Independent Review of Books. And check out Kirkus Reviews’ look at the book.

Over Summer 2018, Kate Bornstein appeared in STRAIGHT WHITE MEN on Broadway. Follow this link to read the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s story.

Marty Moran revisited his one man show, THE TRICKY PART at the Barrow Theatre in December 2018. Click here to read the outrageous New York Times review.

Malaga Baldi is honored with Publishing Triangle’s Leadership Award, held at the New School in New York City in April. Created in 2002, this award recognizes contributions to LGBTQ literature by those who are not primarily writers, such as editors, agents, librarians and institutions. Click here to read the article.

A most remarkable & prescient acceptance speech, The Time is Now, was given by Sarah Schulman at the Publishing Triangle Award event. Follow this link to read the speech.

The Ursa Major awards are the furry equivalent of the sci-fi world’s Hugo Awards, voted on by members of the furry community. Joe Strike’s FURRY NATION won this year’s award as best non-fiction work. The “FurDU” (Furry Down Under) convention was held in Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. Click here to see the awards presentation.

Does TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD matter? Tom Santopietro’s WHY TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD MATTERS is reviewed by USA TODAY and THE NEW YORK TIMES.

Baldibooks covers all topics: from Greenland, to what makes the perfect menu, to the cultural history of Furies, and why does TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD matter. Want more? An audio book companion to the second edition of URBAN TANTRA. Fans of THE REVOLUTION OF LITTLE GIRLS and TERMINAL VELOCITY by Blanche McCrary Boyd are in for a surprise in the return of Ellen Burns in TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN RACIST due out this spring from Counterpoint.

Long time mentor and client, Ray Coppinger, died on August 14. His graphic first novel, FISHING DOGS, combined his love of fishing and an imaginary inbred fishing dog. His work on the science of dogs is read widely and critically acclaimed. Follow this link to read Hampshire College’s tribute.

Kate Bornstein’s anniversary reissue of GENDER OUTLAW received an outstanding review on Bookmans Blog.

Patty Dann’s essays continue to enrapture and explain families, including this in the Boston Globe and Minnie Driver’s reading of another essay.

After Barbara Cook died in in August, Tom Santopietro described how they worked together on her THEN & NOW memoir.

Looking for stocking stuffers? Published by Cleis in the fall is Joe Strike’s FURRY NATION. Happy Halloween…furs are everywhere! Just when you thought it was safe, FLYING CARS, ZOMBIE DOGS & ROBOT OVERLORDS by Charles Pappas is to be published by Lyons Press.
Other trade trade paperback reissues include:
ALL THE RAGE/Beacon by Martin Moran
SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD/Liveright by David Skal
THE WARS OF THE ROOSEVELTS/Harpers by William Mann
CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER/7 Stories by Kia Corthron

Great books sold!
MAY WE SUGGEST Agate/Surrey by Alison Pearlman. Restaurant menus are everywhere. But we know little about how they influence us. Pearlman investigates.

Janyce Stefan-Cole’s AND NEVER HIT GROUND, when her Abenaki husband is found on his ancestral land shot with the family rifle, a newspaper reporter becomes the prime suspect – a cross-cultural history of visions and desire. Fred Ramey at Unbridled Books publishes in 2018. Her take no prisoners HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD and THE DETECTIVE’S GARDEN were published by Ramey as well.

Patty Dann’s personal essays appeared in the Boston Globe: A widow honors her old life, amid her new one and Mom, memory care, and me. And she was interviewed about Butterfly Hours on the Studio A program in New York.

Last year’s Center for Fiction winner, Viet Thanh Nguyen, presented Kia Corthron the Center for Fiction’s 2016 First Novel Prize AWARD for THE CASTLE CROSS THE MAGNET CARTER. In the Jan. 30, 2017, issue of the New York Times Book Review, Nguyen said “This big, ambitious, challenging novel should have gotten much more attention. It tells the 20th-century history of the United States through the intersecting lives of two white brothers and two black brothers. It is, by turns, tender, brutal and redemptive..”

Stellar reviews continue for William J. Mann’s THE WARS OF THE ROOSEVELTS: USA Today, Tulsa World, Iron Mountain Daily News, WAMC Radio and the History News Network.

A superb AudioFile review of the ALL THE RAGE audiobook read by Martin Moran: “Moran brings his appealing acting skills and keen sensitivity to the subtle ebb and flow of his story’s pathos. He is absolutely engaging to hear, and his performance gracefully balances the moderation of an objective storyteller with the first-person intensity of an author-narrated memoir.”

David J. Skal is nominated twice for his well reviewed SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD. He is up for the Edgar Award for Best Critical/Biographical and for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement for Nonfiction 2016.

Tom Santopietro’s THE SOUND OF MUSIC STORY continues to have legs. How does a friend of Trump land the Austrian Ambassadorship? From The Palm Beach Daily News, Barbara Cook spent the last couple of years telling her story to Tom Santopietro. THEN AND NOW: A MEMOIR was published by Harper Collins in June. Read the New York Times’ profile of Cook, watch an Arts in the City video or read gossip columnist Liz Smith’s review of the book.