“Gone Girl” author Gillian Flynn and Emmy-winning writer-producer-actor Lena Waithe will each run new book imprints at Zando, a new house headed by Molly Stern, who helped establish Flynn when she was the publisher of Crown.
“I start every conversation about books with ‘What’s the weirdest things you’ve read this year? What’s the book that you read and later thought, what the hell was that? What an interesting, quirkily little book,” said Flynn.
Stern founded Zando in 2020 as a platform for publishing its own books and for launching imprints by others.
“Lena Waithe and Gillian Flynn are dream publishing partners for Zando. I’m no different from millions of other readers who know what these remarkable creators stand for, respect their unique vision and trust their taste” said Stern in a statement.
“Lena and Gillian are cultural pioneers who devour and celebrate exciting new literary work and share my desire to support new voices,” she added.
Flynn’s imprint will be called Gillian Flynn Books and Waithe’s will be an extension of the Hillman Grad production company she founded with Rishi Rajani.
Waithe, whose credits range from writing and producing the crime film “Queen and Slim” to creating the Showtime series “The Chi,” met Stern in 2017 after the publisher contacted her in hopes she might write a book.
“When I first met with Molly several years ago, I knew there would be something special we would create. As Hillman Grad has grown, Rishi and I have had the opportunity to support underrepresented voices in film, TV and music. Now we get to do the same for books and we couldn’t be more excited,” Waithe said in a statement.
Each imprint will publish four to six books a year, according to Zando. Hillman Grad will feature “vibrant, richly imaginative work from underrepresented voices including memoir, literary fiction, and YA,” and Flynn’s imprint will focus on” propulsive, culturally incisive and dynamic work from writers working across genres.”
Stern, who left Crown amid a corporate restructuring in 2018, remains close to Flynn and other authors she has worked with. Flynn said she and Stern are so closely aligned that for her imprint she will often rely upon suggestions Stern sends her way.
Stern’s other books at Crown ranged from Michelle Obama’s multimillion-selling “Becoming” to Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City,” winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2017.
Source: The New York Times & ABC News
