Fleet signs ‘luminous’ new collection by Jenny Slate 

Fleet has signed a second book from actress, comedian and author Jenny Slate, entitled Lifeform.

Editorial director Rhiannon Smith bought UK and Commonwealth rights from Fiona Baird at WME on behalf of Claudia Ballard. Little, Brown & Company will publish in the US.  Fleet will publish Lifeform in e-book, audio and export markets in October 2024, and in hardback in January 2025.

Lifeform is a new collection of personal pieces that depicts the journey into motherhood “as you’ve never experienced it before”. Told in five phases – Single, True Love, Pregnancy, Baby, and Ongoing – the publisher says Slate’s “luminous, laugh-out-loud funny pieces take the form of letters to a doctor, dreams of a stork, fantasy therapy sessions, gossip between racoons, excerpts from an imaginary olden timey play, obituaries, theories about postpartum hair loss, graduation speeches and more.”

Slate, whose previous book with Fleet, Little Weirds, was published in 2020, said: “What a warm, rewarding, and rather absurd privilege it is to be invited to share one’s personal feelings with strangers across the world. Writing this book was not just an effort to provide evidence of my shifting experiences, it was a request for connection. So in every way, this is exactly what I wanted. What a wonderful connection indeed. I’m so pleased, and deeply grateful.”

Smith said: “Jenny is a writer like no other – her view on the world is refreshing and expansive, truly unique. It was a joy to bring Little Weirds to readers and Lifeform is the perfect follow-up with all of the same poignancy and surrealism that Jenny manages to being to her writing.”