Scribe wins Jochems' debut novel as film rights sold to Wild Card

Independent publishing house Scribe has acquired the rights to New Zealand author Annaleese Jochems' first two novels, as film rights for her debut are sold to Wild Card Films. 

Scribe UK publisher-at-large Philip Gwyn Jones, with agent Sarah Scard from United Agents, acquired World All Language Rights excluding New Zealand from New Zealand publishing house VUP.

24-year-old Jochems’ debut Baby “caused a small squall” in New Zealand, according to Gwyn Jones. “I don’t want to say too much about the reading experience, but if you are like me you will keep having to put it down because it feels frequently like you’ve just been stung by a wasp.”

He added: “All I will say is that you are inside the mind of one very off-balance, one-track, cock-eyed millennial, Cynthia, as she pursues her delusions and a girl called Anahera, and it is often a very, very disorienting place to be. You are almost entirely afloat too, on a boat called Baby, so there is a certain apt biliousness to proceedings.” 

Scribe, which also acquired Jochems' second currently untitled novel, will release Baby in Australia before publishing in hardback and ebook in the UK in August 2019.