Picador scoops astrology guide from Twitter stars the Astro Poets

Picador has scooped a witty 21st century astrology guide from Twitter stars the Astro Poets, helping readers navigate their friendships, career and love life.

Editor Kishani Widyaratna snapped up UK and Commonwealth rights from Chris Scheina at St Martin’s Press, in association with Marya Spence at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. The Astro Poets: Your Guides to the Zodiac will be published in hardback on 31st October.

Poets Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky have amassed more than 494,000 followers on Twitter, now write a regular column in W Magazine and have been profiled in publications including the New York Times and Elle.

Picador said their book followed in the tradition of Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs (Pan Macmillan), but “made for the world we live in today”. The synopsis explains: “Both the perfect introduction to the twelve signs for the astrological novice, and a resource to return to for those out there who already know why their Cancer boyfriend cries during commercials but need a little help with their new wacky Libra boss. This is the astrology must-have for the twenty-first century and beyond.”

Widyaratna said: “I am over the moon to be working with renegade poets Alex Dimitrov and Dorothea Lasky. As the Astro Poets they radically rewire astrological wisdom for the enlightened audience of today, and do so with literary flair, pop-cultural savvy and caustic wit. The manuscript had all of us at Picador dying with laughter and sharing devastating lines with each other. Their guide promises to be both the perfect Christmas gift for utterly obsessed fans like myself, and the ideal introduction to their delectable counsel for a legion of new readers.”

Dimitrov has published three books of poetry, with work appearing in the New Yorker, the Paris Review and the New York Times, and has received a Pushcart Prize and Stanley Kunitz Prize from American Poetry Review. Lasky is the author of six poetry collections and a book of prose, and has been published in the New Yorker, Boston Review and the Paris Review.

The pair said: “We couldn’t be more thrilled for our book to be joining the Picador list. What a complete honour it is to have our work next to all of the superstar authors there. We are so excited to work closely with Kishani Widyaratna and the rest of the Picador team.”

Spence added: “Alex and Dorothea are incredibly accomplished poets in their own right, and I’ve been honoured to work with them on a project so ingeniously born at the intersection of astrology, pathos, humour, and utterly modern wisdom. The Astro Poets speak with such crackling, vital verve to our human experience that I can’t imagine a world without this life-giving book.”