Deals.

Disney Publishing Worldwide has split it's children's book division into two groups, both of which will be headed by African American women. Andrea Davis Pinkney, formerly the executive editor of Disney/Hyperion's successful imprint for African American children's books, Jump at the Sun, steps up to the position of editorial director for Hyperion's entire children's list. Jackie Carter, former continuity director at Disney Global Children's Books, is now its editorial director.

Villard/Strivers Row editor Melody Guy hit the ground running in the new year. She just inked a rumored six-figure, three-book deal with Tracy-Price Thompson. Thompson's first Villard novel, Black Coffee is slated to be published in Spring 2002. Villard also struck a deal for two books by Edwardo Jackson with Janell Walden Agyeman of Marie Brown Associates representing. Jackson's first book, Ever After, is scheduled for a September 2001 release. Villard acquired Not All Dogs, a self-published novel by C. Kelly Robinson, will be published by Villard's Strivers Row imprint this fall.

Comedy King Bernie Mac sold the world and audio rights to his new book, I Ain't Scared of You!, to editor Tracy Sherrod for Pocket Books' MTV imprint for a reported high six-figures. Random House is set to publish Maxine Clair's new novel, October Suite this fall, and Ballantine's One World recently won the bid for Freedom in the Family, a civil rights movement memoir by Patricia Stephens Due and her daughter Tananarive Due, marking the speculative fiction queen's nonfiction debut. Anita Diggs, director of One World, says to expect the book in 2002.

Diggs also recently signed TV judge Greg Mathis' memoir, Inner City Miracle, with co-writer Blair F. Walker. Diggs also bought Growing Up X, a new memoir by Ilysah Shabazz, Malcolm X's daughter. Also set for a 2002 release with One World is the new novel, Brothers, a domestic drama by Freddie Lee Johnson III. One World has also picked up the paperback rights for This lust In, by Yolanda Joe (published in hardcover by Doubleday), and Every Party Tells A Story, Karen Hudson's book offering classy entertaining tips for black folks who want to run with the big dogs.

Manie Barron has purchased The Eddie Carter Story, written by Robert Allen with Allene Carter, for HarperCollins imprint, Amistad Press. Eddie Carter, Allene's father -in- law, was one of the seven soldiers whose distinguished service cross former-president Bill Clinton upgraded to a medal of honor.

HarperCollins is set to publish Pimpnosis, by photographer Tracy Funches and writer Rob Marriott, which is a coffee table book on pimps and their culture. Speaking of the street, HarperCollins also picked up Too Beautiful for Words, by first-time novelist Monique Harris--a story of a prostitute named Peaches and Jesus, her pimp--as well as A Dogz Life, rapper DMX's "inspirational" memoir of his troubled youth and megastar salvation, which will be published under the HarperEntertainment imprint in 2001.

William Morrow editor Kelli Martin has recently acquired bell hooks' Communion: Women, Aging and Love for the Morrow imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Morrow has published hooks' entire love trilogy including All About Love--New Visions, and Salvation--Black People and Love.

Dutton won an auction, with a six-figure bid, for the first novel by Nick Chiles and Denene Millner, authors of the What Brothers Think, What Sistahs Know series. The relationship novel, entitled Love Don't Live Here, is due out in spring 2002.

Dora McDonald, former private secretary and personal aide to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has broken her self-imposed silence after 40 years. McDonald plans to publish her story, tentatively titled Assistant to the King, with Hill Street Press.

New Publishing Developments

HarperCollins publishers recently launched a new imprint, HarperTorch, which will publish four African American romance titles per year.

Toni Trent Parker, co-author of Black Books Galore! Guide to Great African American Children's Books, recently launched Blackberry Express, a new quarterly guide to African American children's literature and for educators, librarians, booksellers and families.

Awards Spotlight!

Major Jackson won the 2000 Cave Canem Poetry Prize for Leaving Saturn, which is scheduled to be published by the University of Georgia Press. Congratulations to 2001 Coretta Scott King Award winners Jacqueline Woodson, Bryan Collier, Andrea Davis Pinkney, Doreen Rappoport, E.B. Lewis, Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard, R. Gregory Christie and Anne Rockwell.

Congratulations also go to winners of the 2001 Literary Award for Fiction, given by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association: Paule Marshall, Venise Berry, Bernice McFadden, Larry Eugene Rivers, Larry Bustler, Kevin Powell, David Levering Lewis and Allen B. Ballard.