Deals. (Between the lines: the inside scoop on what's happening in the publishing industry).

Leslie Esdaile may be one of the hardest working writers in the publishing industry. Over the next year, she will have new releases--ranging from romance novels to horror stories--from BET/Arabesque Books, St. Martin's Press, Genesis Press and Simon and Schuster/ Pocket Books. In October, Pocket Books will release Soul Food: For Better, For Worse, the first book in a series based on the Showtime original TV series, Soul Food. The second Soul Food installment is expected in spring 2003. Esdaile will write both books under the name Leslie E. Banks. In July 2003, St. Martin's Press will publish The Slayer Chronicles: The Minion, the first in a series of vampire novels. Esdaile will write The Slayer Chronicles under the name L.A. Banks. She is represented by Manie Baron at the William Morris Agency.

Mo'Nique, star of the UPN sitcom The Parkers and member of the Queens of Comedy tour, will pen her memoir, Skinny Women Are Evil with Sherri McGee. Atria Books will publish the book in spring 2003, and it will include Mo'Nique's views on love, weight, exercise, sex and matters of the heart.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (see Awards Spotlight) signed a two-book deal with Random House President Ann Godoff. Godoff will edit Parks' first novel, Getting Mother's Body, for a summer 2003 release.

Former BIBR senior editor Samiya A. Bashir will edit the highly anticipated follow-up to last year's best-selling anthology Best Black Women's Erotica, which was originally edited by Blanche Richardson of Marcus Books in Oakland, CA. Best Black Women's Erotica 2 will be published by Cleis Press in the spring of 2003. Bashir's poetry collection, Blood and Wine, is scheduled for fall release from Third World Press. She is also coeditor with Quaraysh Ali Lansana and Tony Medina of Role Call: A Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature and Art.

Time magazine music critic Christopher John Farley's biography of Academy Award winner Halle Berry will be released in November from Pocket Books. Introducing Halle Berry is the second quick biography from Farley. This past December, MTV/Pocket Books released Farley's Aaliyah Dana Haughton bio, Aaliyah: More Than a Woman, which now has 120,000 copies in print.

Self-published author Nina Foxx's new novel, Get Some Love, will be published in the spring of 2003 by Avon Books. The story centers around a woman who stands to inherit millions of dollars if she can lose her virginity in one week. Foxx is also the author of the Dippin' My Spoon and Do the Write Thing: 7 Steps to Publishing Success, which was cowritten with Kwame Alexander.

In November, HarperCollins will publish Valerie Wilson Wesley's new novel, Always True to You in My Fashion, with an initial print run of 75,000. Wesley, author of the Tamara Hale mystery series, last penned Ain't Nobody's Business if I Do in 1999. Wesley is represented by Faith Childs of the Faith Childs Literary Agency.

Strivers Row/Villard editor Melody Guy has acquired the next two books by Tajuana "TJ" Butler, author of Sorority Sister and Hand-Me-Down Heartache. The first, The Night Before 30, centers around five women on the even of their 30th birthday. The second book deals with a character from Hand-Me-Down Heartache.