Walter Mosley, Internationally Acclaimed New York Times - Bestselling Author, Signs Three-Book Deal with Riverhead Books

NEW YORK, Dec. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Walter Mosley, the internationally acclaimed, award-winning New York Times-bestselling author, has agreed to a three-book deal with Riverhead Books, it was announced today by Geoffrey Kloske, Vice President, Publisher, Riverhead Books. The books will be edited by Sean McDonald, Vice President, Executive Editor, Riverhead Books, who acquired world hardcover, paperback and audio rights to these works from literary agent Gloria Loomis of Watkins Loomis. Two of the books will be part of a new mystery series Mr. Mosley is launching that will feature Leonid McGill, an African-American private investigator based in contemporary New York City. This character was first introduced by Mr. Mosley in one of his short stories, "Karma," which was included in the Best American Mystery Stories of 2006 anthology. The first book in Mr. Mosley's new mystery series will be published in hardcover by Riverhead in 2009, with NAL publishing the title in paperback the following year. Mr. Mosley will also be writing a literary novel for Riverhead.

One of the most prolific, highly regarded and widely read writers of our time, Walter Mosley is the author of twenty-seven critically acclaimed books and his work has been translated into twenty-three languages. His popular mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins began with Devil in a Blue Dress in 1990. Others in the series include Black Betty, A Little Yellow Dog and the current New York Times bestseller, Blonde Faith.

Mr. Mosley has won numerous awards, including the Anisfield Wolf Award, an honor given to works that increase the appreciation and understanding of race in America. He has also been honored with the Sundance Institute's Risktaker Award and PEN American Center's Lifetime Achievement Award, and has won a Grammy Award (for the liner notes of a career-spanning Richard Pryor CD box set) and an O'Henry Award, among other honors.

Two motion pictures have been made from his work, including the 1995 TriStar release of Devil in a Blue Dress, produced by Jonathan Demme, directed by Carl Franklin, and starring Denzel Washington and Jennifer Beals.

Sean McDonald commented, "I've long thought of Walter Mosley as one of the great American writers. His work is consistently provocative and exciting, delivered with a style and power that is uniquely his own. I'm absolutely thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him."

Geoffrey Kloske said, "We feel privileged to be launching a brand new series by such an internationally revered author. And we're very excited that he has decided to join the ranks of Riverhead's award-winning, bestselling family of writers."

Walter Mosley said, "I'm very happy that Geoffrey, Sean, and their excellent team have agreed to take me and my work on. It feels like a perfect fit and I'm looking forward to delving into the writing and the work that comes after the writing. I have every expectation that this will be a revelatory and deeply satisfying journey."

NOTE TO THE PRESS:

Walter Mosley is the author of twenty-seven critically acclaimed books and his work has been translated into twenty-three languages. His popular mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins began with Devil in a Blue Dress in 1990. Others in the series include A Red Death, White Butterfly, Black Betty and A Little Yellow Dog, Bad Boy Brawley Brown, Six Easy Pieces, Little Scarlet, Cinnamon Kiss, and this fall's Blonde Faith. The independent Black Classic Press published the prequel to the Rawlins' series, Gone Fishin', in January 1997.

Mr. Mosley has also written novels outside of his two mystery series including literary fiction (Killing Johnny Fry, Fortunate Son, The Man in My Basement, RL's Dream, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, and Walkin' the Dog), science fiction (The Wave, Blue Light and Futureland), works of nonfiction, (This Year You Write Your Novel, Life Out of Context, Workin' on the Chain Gang and What Next) and a young adult novel, 47.

Two movies have been made from his work including the 1995 TriStar release of Devil in a Blue Dress, produced by Jonathan Demme, directed by Carl Franklin, and starring Denzel Washington and Jennifer Beals. Always Outnumbered was produced by HBO/NYC and Palomar Pictures film, directed by Michael Apted and starred Laurence Fishburne, Natalie Cole, Cicely Tyson and Bill Cobbs.

His short fiction has been published in a wide array of publications including The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, USA Weekend, Los Angeles Times Magazine and Savoy (a year-long serial of a new series called "The Tempest Tales" in homage to Langston Hughes' The Simple Stories.) The American Society of Magazine Editors has honored a story he published in GQ, "The Black Woman in the Chinese Hat," in 2000. His nonfiction has been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Nation and he was an editor and contributor to the book Black Genius. He is the guest editor for The Best American Short Stories of 2003. This fall he contributed both a foreword and an afterword to a special art book presentation of the first volume of the famous comic book by Jack Kirby, The Fantastic Four Volume 1 (Marvel Comics).

He has won numerous awards including the Anisfield Wolf Award, an honor given to works that increase the appreciation and understanding of race in America. In 2002, he won a Grammy award for his liner notes accompanying "Richard Pryor ... And It's Deep Too!: The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings (1968-1992)" from Warner Archives/Rhino Entertainment. He was a finalist for the NAACP Award in Fiction and won the 1996 Black Caucus of the American Library Association's Literary Award (for RL's Dream.). He was an O'Henry Award winner in 1996 (for a Socrates Fortlow story) and is featured in Prize Stories 1996: The O'Henry Awards edited by William Abraham. Last year he was honored with the Sundance Institute's Risktaker Award and PEN American Center's Lifetime Achievement Award.

Mr. Mosley created, with the City University of New York (CUNY), a new publishing degree program aimed at young urban residents. It is the only such program in the country. He served on the board of directors of the National Book Awards, and presently serves on the boards of The Poetry Society of America, Full Frame Documentary Film Festival and TransAfrica, and is past- president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Mr. Mosley now lives in New York City.

Riverhead Books, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA), is home to many award-winning, bestselling authors, including Khaled Hosseini, Junot Diaz, Dinaw Mengestu, Shalom Auslander, James McBride, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, and Chang-rae Lee, among others. Looking at 2007, the publication of Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns was one of the year's major literary events. With more than 2 million copies shipped to date, A Thousand Splendid Suns debuted at #1 on The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list, with 28 weeks on that list overall, and still growing. Khaled Hosseini's first novel, The Kite Runner, has now been on The New York Times paperback fiction bestseller list for 143 weeks, and still growing. Riverhead's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, also a New York Times bestseller, recently won the 2007 John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize, presented by the Mercantile Library Center for Fiction (the second year in a row that a Penguin Group (USA) author has won this award). Other Riverhead highlights from 2007: Dinaw Mengestu, author of the critically acclaimed, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, was one of the National Book Foundation's "Five Under 35," a select group of emerging authors chosen by National Book Award winners and finalists. Also, Anne Lamott's Grace (Eventually) was a New York Times bestseller for six weeks, and The Last Summer (of You and Me) by Ann Brashares, her first adult novel, was also a New York Times bestseller.

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