Forgotten YA literature to be reissued

Publishers Weekly reports that Ig Publishing is embarking on an exciting new venture.

 

Ig Publishing, which for more than a decade has maintained a list of fiction and nonfiction for adult readers and reissues for the academic market, is moving into a new direction this fall with the launch of Lizzie Skurnick Books. The imprint, explained Ig publisher Robert Lasner, will “bring back the very best in young adult literature, from the classics of the 1930s and 1940s, to the thrillers and social novels of the 1970s and 1980s.”

Skurnick, the author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading (William Morrow, 2009) and a freelance journalist who writes about publishing and culture, will handle all acquisitions and edit the books, roughly 12 to 14 titles per year. Ig, which is based in Brooklyn, N.Y., will continue to publish another 8 to 10 titles for adults per year.

 

While the imprint will initially reissue out-of-print titles, Skurnick hopes to also publish new works by the authors of 1970s- and 1980s- era novels. The first original release, Isabel’s War, is scheduled for fall 2014; the novel launches a trilogy by Fat Glenda author Perl.

The emphasis will be on books for girls, Skurnick noting that classics for boys, notably books by Robert Cormier and Arthur C. Clarke, are still in print, while books that thousands of modern women remember with affection are not.