EMPLOYEE SPOTLIGHT: Editorial & Marketing Assistant Molly O'Laughlin

Welcome back to the Overlook Press Employee Spotlight Series! Looking for some insight into how the publishing process works? You've come to the right place. Over the last year and a half we've introduced designers, contract managers, editors, sales staff, and publicists, all in the hopes of better acquainting blog readers with our team, as well as educating fans about the methods behind our bookish madness.

It's been a few months since we last introduced Overlook editor Mark Krotov, but today we're delighted to revive the regular feature that takes you behind the scenes at 141 Wooster Street, as we shine the spotlight on one of Overlook's most recent acquisitions, editorial and marketing assistant Molly O'Laughlin.

Kansas City native Molly O'Laughlin joined Overlook last month, having worked previously at Maria B. Campbell Associates, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Books of Wonder, and Archipelago Books. She loves KC barbecue and tiramisu, and will watch the same move five times in a row if she likes it enough (*ahem* Pitch Perfect *ahem*).

OP: Describe your job in 140 characters or less.

MO: I get to indulge my obsessive tendencies with detail work in both departments, read good books and work with wonderful people. #dreamjob!

OP: What are you currently reading?

MO: Besides submissions, I'm reading HOW THE FRENCH INVENTED LOVE by Marilyn Yalom, and TRUE GRIT by Charles Portis (because really it's shameful that I haven't yet read it).

OP: What is your favorite book that Overlook has published?

MO: I'm obsessed with THE CIRCLE by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg (forthcoming in May, is that cheating?) and ST. TRINIAN'S by Ronald Searle—sinister schoolgirls all the way. 

OP: If you didn't work in publishing, what would you be doing? 

MO: I'd probably be working at an arts non-profit or back in academia. Like George, I sing in a choir (Grace Church Choral Society), so maybe I'd even be singing...!

OP: What is your favorite word (can be in any language—bonus points if there is a funny/interesting story behind it)?

MO: I love the word "supper." I feel like I only ever hear my Oklahoman grandparents use it anymore, so it has all these nice, warm, homey connotations for me. Plus, supper/dinner is the best meal of the day!

Poet Robert Forbes Loves Ginger Fish Pie and Reading to Kids!

Robert Forbes, author of Beastly Feasts! A Mischievous Menagerie in Rhyme, recently paid a visit to the Palm Beach Day Academy in Palm Beach, Florida. A crowd of 150 second-through-seventh graders were delighted with the mischiveous rhymes, reports Jan Sjostrom in a feature article in The Palm Beach Daily News. Theater students from the Alexander W. Dreyfoos, Jr. Schoool of Arts were also on hand to give an interpretation of the poems. Now that's a thought, could Beastly Feasts! The Movie be coming soon to a theater near you?

BEASTLY FEASTS! is "Best Read Aloud to Grandchildren"

Columnist Betty Woodward salutes Beastly Feasts! on Grandparents.com: "Subtitled A Mischievous Menagarie in Rhyme, Beastly Feasts! is a collection of delicious rhymes about animals, loving and not so-so-loving. There are plenty among the 40-odd poems that will appeal to grandchildren ages 7 and younger such as "The Rhinosaurus." The slightly older set will appreciate the more sophisticated poems, such as "Ode on a Fishbowl" that describes the perennial standoff between cat and goldfish. I could go on quoting these luscious little poems, but they are best read aloud to your grandchildren. They'll eat up the madcap creature illustrations by cartoonist Ronald Searle. Add the search fo the secret beast hidden within each drawing and you have the makings of a repeat read for years to come."

BEASTLY FEASTS on Tour!

The Beastly Feasts! 2007 Book Tour launched in New York City this afternoon with author/poet Bob Forbes reading his mischievious poems to a crowd of very well-behaved book lovers at Books of Wonder. Here's Bob with Peter Glassman of Books of Wonder and hey, isn't that Hippo Uh-Oh and The Debonair Fox? Someone saw Lottie the Hottie by the front door, and wasn't that a Chittery-Chattery Crab hanging out in back? Next stop: Atlanta, Georgia on Saturday, October 20!

Have You Heard the Gnus?!: Robert Forbes reads at Books of Wonder Sunday September 30th at 2 PM!

Attention, attention, children of ALL ages! Come one and all to the premiere place for kid's books in all 5 boroughs! Books of Wonder! Saturday 9/30 at 2 PM, Robert Forbes will be reading from his irresistible new offering: Beastly Feasts! Listen to the poems! Get a signed copy! Bring a parent along! There are rumors of snacks! We'll see you there: bring a beastly appetite for poems and cookies!

THE ART OF RONALD SEARLE

Opening this week at The Forbes Gallery in New York is a magnificent new exhibition of the work of legendary caricaturist Ronald Searle. The exhibit features the original drawings that illustrate Overlook's new children's book by Robert L. Forbes, Beastly Feasts: A Mischievious Menagerie in Rhyme, and a retrospective of Searle's career, "Ronald Searle: A Lifetime of Drawing." The exhibition is on display September 19, 2007 - March 15, 20008. One of the great illustrators of our generation, Searle's amazing cartoons of the St.Trinian's boarding school will be collected in a new book published by The Rookery Press in January 2008, coinciding with the major motion picture release of St. Trinians's, starring Rupert Everett, Mischa Barton, and Colin Firth.