MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
May 3 – May 10, 2007 Edition
Virginia Tech
Book Acquired
By Plume
NEW YORK, NY/5/1/07-Plume, an imprint of Penguin Putnam, has acquired world rights to Virginia Tech media writing professor Roland Lazenby’s April 16: Heartbreak in Blacksburg. It is one of the first books to focus on the Virginia Tech, the April 2007 scene of the largest mass shooting in U.S. history.
Professor Lazenby’s book will focus on the campus community’s recovery from the terrible tragedy and upon his journalism students and their efforts to provide major media with information through their student website, www.planetblacksburg.com. Three students will coauthor the book with Lazenby and proceeds will go to support journalism at the school and to a victims’ fund at Virginia Tech.
During a two-and-a-half-hour shooting spree, Cho Seung-Hui, a Korean-born permanent U.S. resident and an English major at the university, killed 32 people and wounded many more at Virginian Polytechnic Institute and State University and then committed suicide. He was 23-years-old.
The Lazenby book was acquired by Plume editor-in-chief Cherise Davis and will be released this summer. The agent for the project was Matthew Carnicelli.
Cherise Davis has been at Plume since January 2007 after serving as a senior editor at Touchstone Fireside. Plume publishes about 100-120 titles a year, and its backlist currently encompasses approximately 700 titles. Clare Ferraro is the President of Viking Penguin, Plume and Studio Books imprints of Penguin Putnam.
