April 8, 2013

New imprint Lizzie Skurnick Books to release long-forgotten YA literature

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The new cover for Debutante Hill, the first book to be reissued by Lizzie Skurnick Books.

If you’ve been looking for a YA book from your youth that’s hard to find or has gone out of print, Ig Publishing has stepped in to offer a solution. Publishers Weekly’s Claire Kirch wrote last week that the Brooklyn-based publisher is launching Lizzie Skurnick Books this fall, an imprint that will publish out-of-print young adult books, starting with the novel Debutante Hill by Lois Duncan, which has been out of print for about thirty years.

The new imprint will be headed, logically enough, by Lizzie Skurnick, a columnist for Jezebel and author of ten YA books of her own. Skurnick told PW that part of the impetus for starting the imprint was the relative lack of availability of books from the 1970s and 80s beloved by teen girls compared to that of boys’ favorites. Interestingly, they’re not primarily intended for the current youth market, but for readers who remember them nostalgically. Skurnick says that:

“[These books] are not for teens… Teens’ tastes have changed. It’s for adults who want to read, re-read, and collect these books. If mothers and fathers want to share the books, great…It’s always been my dream to get those books back into print. I just didn’t think it’d be me doing it.”

While Skurnick will start out by focusing on reissuing out-of-print titles, she also plans to start publishing new work from authors of the 70s and 80s once the imprint has some momentum. Her first original book will be Isabel’s War by Lila Perl, who also wrote Fat Glenda, a 1972 novel that Skurnick will also be putting back into print soon. Isabel’s War, the first in a trilogy, is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2014.

Skurnick is planning to put out 12-14 titles a year, available as trade paperbacks and ebooks; vintage YA fans can look out for Debutante Hill this September.

 

Nick Davies is a publicist at Melville House.

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