Writing Home

Little, Brown’s Voracious imprint has inked a publishing partnership with former HGTV star and author Joanna Gaines, kicking off in fall 2027 with a new book on interior design. Spotify is leaning into AI-powered audiobook discovery with new tools enabling users to ask questions about a book’s contents, generate playlists, and more. HarperCollins’s Christian division is launching an imprint for Catholic books under the direction of religious publishing veteran Kristi McDonald. And OverDrive is growing its presence in Europe with the acquisition of a German digital lending platform. In other news, Deadline reports that Torrey Peters’s Stag Dance is getting a film adaptation from Run-A-Muck, the media startup of Condé Nast alum Pamela Drucker Mann. Slate considers how Pizza Hut’s recently revived summer reading program, Book It!, encouraged literacy among millennials. On Substack, author Lincoln Michel, publicist Kathleen Schmidt, and other industry commentators weigh in on the cancellation of Jerry Falade’s debut novel. Portico excavates the origins of the modern editor, while Lit Hub digs into the history of book cover design. Amazon has released the trailer for Michael Showalter’s film adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s novel Verity. And Martha Ingram, who took the helm of Ingram Industries after the death of her husband in 1995, has died at 90.