Leapfrog Press News

Leapfrog Press News Spring, 2004

Meet Amy Gallo, Leapfrog Acquisitions Editor Amy Gallo joined Leapfrog in August, 2003. She graduated Yale Univeristy in 1996. Her previous lives include working for a New York City management consulting firm, lobbying the Connecticut State Legislature for non-profit organizations and handing out needles for a needle exchange program in San Francisco. She is a fiction writer and is currently working on a novel. Amy lives with her boyfriend and her dog. Please do not submit any work to Leapfrog before reading the Submission Guidelines. Meet Courtney Hurst, Leapfrog Director of Marketing Courtney Hurst comes to Leapfrog Press with a bachelor’s degree in Communications/Public Relations from Loyola University, New Orleans and experience representing both private and public companies within the high technology and healthcare industries. After experiencing the rise and fall of the dot.com industry in the late nineties, she shifted her energy to healthcare public relations where she used her knowledge and experience to help smaller pharmaceutical companies increase their market share in an industry dominated by large corporations. Originally from Provincetown, Courtney is happy to be home, working within the publishing industry and finishing her second novel. Martín Espada Joins the Leapfrog Line-up of Esteemed Poets for his Long-awaited Audio CD Martin Espada has been called ‘the Pablo Neruda of North American authors.’ The publication of his latest book, ALABANZA: New and Selected Poems (W. W. Norton) was chosen the American Library Association Best Book of Poetry for 2003. Although his commanding reading style often drives audiences to standing ovations, Now the Dead Will Dance the Mambo is Espada’s first-ever audio CD, featuring over seventy minutes of the best poems of his twenty-year career. We Don't Publish Many Story Collections, So When We Do, They Have to Be Great. Coming in February: WAITING FOR ELVIS Zany, over-the-top, and sexy, while achingly poignant and real, Waiting for Elvis is the bitingly funny follow-up to Toni Graham’s award winning collection The Daiquiri Girls. In eleven darkly comic, interconnected stories that read as seamlessly as a novel, Graham exposes the hilarious side of loneliness and introduces Jane, the most beguiling single woman since Bridget Jones. The New York Times Book Review calls her work “Remarkable!" Send us an e-mail and let us know what you'd like to see more of in the Leapfrog Press News! Back to HomePage		Coming in July: Our Featured Summer Fiction Title will be Junebug by the award winning Cornell lit professor, Maureen McCoy. A funny, sexy and emotionally engaging mother-daughter novel, it's a cross between White Oleander and Anywhere But Here, and tells the story of seventeen year-old Junebug Host, whose mother was convicted of murder when Junie was five and has been incarcerated ever since in a Nebraska state correctional facitity for women. Raging hormones, mother love and teen revenge come together in the most eccentric portrait of the Great Plains we've ever read. Novelist John Nichols says, “Junebug is a rare and special book, one of those mysterious and totally original inventions that summon attention because they are so unique. It is as American as the Great Plains, as poignant as Carson McCullers at her best, and imbued with the deeply affecting and poetical heartsong of its lonely and quirky narrator. Maureen McCoy writes like an angel, full of passion, musical cadence, and offbeat curious insights into the human soul. This novel is a deeply touching prayer for all the wild and beautiful misfits on earth, including you and me.” The Debate Gets LOUDER! "A world class poet and poetry reader, Piercy has inspired and infuriated for decades...This is an excellent audio production." -Christopher Caldwell, audiobookcafe.com Every time Marge Piercy does a poetry reading (and there aren't many major American poets who do more of them) people clammer to know which of her sixteen poetry books their favorite poem can be found in. This past year, in response to the Bush administration's policies, people have been requesting their favorite Piercy political poems like 'To Be of Use,' 'For Strong Women,' 'The Low Road,' and relishing her strong new poems about 9/11, the occupation of Iraq and the Patriot Act. (You can find some of them on the Piercy website). We decided to collect all her political poems in one 63+ minute Audio CD called Louder: We Can't Hear You (Yet!) It's available now in all stores with a good spoken word poetry section. Or, order it from our website or download it directly from Audible.com. Three Leapfrog Titles Are Nominated for ForeWord Magazine's Best Book of the Year Awards: Just the Way You Want Me and The Devil and Daniel Silverman for General Fiction and The German Money for Literary Fiction! (Please note, we NEVER accept unsolicited poetry. ALL unsolicited attachments are automatically deleted ALL of the time. NO EXCEPTIONS. COMPUTER VIRUSES ARE VERY REAL TO US. DO NOT BOTHER TO ATTACH YOUR WORK TO E-MAIL SUBMISSIONS; IT IS NEVER READ AND IMMEDIATELY DELETED).