New Middle Grade Deal Announcement!

I have super exciting news!! My husband and I sold a four book Middle Grade series to Kate Sullivan at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. HUGE SQUEE!!! Though it may change, right now the series is called THE PIRATE STREAM and the first book, which should come out fall 2014, is titled THE MAP TO EVERYWHERE. 

Insert many many more SQUEEs!!

Here's the official announcement from Publishers Weekly:

LBYR Wins Ryan & Davis’s ‘Map’
Winning a four-way auction, Kate Sullivan at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers bought North American rights to the new series by Carrie Ryan and JP Davis, the Pirate Stream. Ryan is an established author (who’s written, among other things, the series the Forest of Hands and Teeth), and Davis, her husband, is a published short story writer who works as a public defender. The series is a quartet, and LBYR acquired all four titles. It follows two children who wind up on a boat, as stowaways, traveling between two worlds. The pair is hunting for a map that can lead them away from their predicament. Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House represented the authors; the first book in the series, The Map to Everywhere, is planned for fall 2014.

And here's the official announcement from Publishers Marketplace:

Carrie Ryan and husband John Parke Davis's middle grade series, about a girl from our world who must join forces with a boy from a magical seaside world to save their families by navigating among pirates, sorcerers and children who can fly, to Kate Sullivan at Little, Brown Children's, at auction, by Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House.  

Rights also to Orion in the UK, in a pre-empt; Fischer in Germany, at auction; Mondadori in Italy, in a pre-empt; Modan at Israel, in a pre-empt; Bayard in France, at auction; AST at Russia; 21st Century in China; and Mondadori at Spain.

And here's a link to the press release our UK publisher, Orion Children's Books, put out about the deal saying,

ORION CHILDREN'S BOOKS ACQUIRES THE PIRATE STREAM: THE MAP TO EVERYWHERE From Acclaimed Author, Carrie Ryan, and John Parke Davis:  In a deal for UK and Commonwealth rights, Amber Caravéo, Editorial Director, Orion Children’s Books has acquired THE PIRATE STREAM, an exciting new adventure series for readers aged 9-12 years from the acclaimed author Carrie Ryan (THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH) and John Parke Davis, from Angharad Kowal at Writers House UK on behalf of Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House US.

The authors brainstorming

JP and I are *beyond* thrilled with all of this!  It's been a complete dream come true and we both owe our agent, Merrilee Heifetz at Writers House, a massively huge thanks.  She's been amazing to work with, as has Angharad Kowal (who handled the UK subrights) and Cecilia de la Campa (who has been handling the our translation subrights).  They're such a fantastic team!

Whenever anyone hears that my husband and I are co-writing a book, they usually give us that "are you sure that's a good idea?" look.  Which I totally understand - lol!  I've always been a huge admirer of JP's writing and he's always been involved in my books from brainstorming to reading draft after draft.    

But even so, when we made the transition from "this middle grade is a fun idea to talk about on long walks" to "hey, maybe we should actually try to write this" I think we both still felt a bit of trepidation.  Would we be able to work together?

The answer has been a resounding yes.  I've *loved* working with JP!  It's always so much fun to read his pages to see where he's taken an idea or a character or a voice.  We've spent hours playing in this world, asking each other "what if?" and feeding off each other's ideas.  The whole process has just been *fun* and I can't wait until the book is out in the world!  MORE SQUEEE!!!!

Unfortunately, that will still be a while - lol.  Until then, I'll leave you with the first line from our synopsis:

This is what the old books say about the Pirate Stream: Nothing.