Betsy Bird, an author and the youth materials specialist at the New York Public Library, has landed a deal with Viking. Bird will curate a humor anthology called Funny Girl. It will feature short stories, essays, comics, and poems from a roster of almost 30 female writers.
Some of the contributors include El Deafo graphic novelist Cece Bell, Princess in Black author Shannon Hale, and Millicent Min, Girl Genius author Lisa Yee. Editor Sharyn November negotiated the deal with Inkwell Management literary agent Stephen Barbara. The book is slated for release in Spring 2017.
Bird shared the news on her School Library Journal blog. Here’s an excerpt from the post: “I asked parents, parents I knew, with kids, both boys and girls, to simply name ‘the funniest women they could think of.’ A simple request, no? The results were just as fascinating as I thought they’d be. Some kids mentioned contemporary comics (Zooey Deschanel, Amy Poehler, and Tiny Fey being the most frequently mentioned). Some were unable to think of any women at all. And none of them mentioned writers or comic artists. Hence, Funny Girl (and yes, I know Nick Hornby recently published a book of the same name but Streisand starred in a film of the same name in 1968 so it’s not like it hasn’t been used several times over). It’s the book I wish I could have read when I was a kid.” (Photo Credit: Sonya Sones)