New Deal: THE CROW VALLEY KARAOKE CHAMPIONSHIPS by Ali Bryan

Ali Bryan's THE CROW VALLEY KARAOKE CHAMPIONSHIPS has sold to Sarah Crichton at Holt. One year after forest fires devastated the town, Crow Valley is holding a high-stakes karaoke competition. Set over the course of a day, the town is thrown into further disarray when a convicted arsonist escapes from a nearby prison.

"THE CROW VALLEY KARAOKE CHAMPIONSHIPS is a charming, heartfelt, and funny novel,” said The Rights Factory agent Stacey Kondla. “Darkly funny at times. Ali Bryan's ability to weave multiple points of view is undeniable and you can't help but fall in love with her characters."

Ali Bryan’s previous YA novel, THE HILL, was published in 2021.

Q&A with Strategist Alex Brueckmann

For more information about TRF client Alex and his work, see Brueckmann.ca.

With renowned speakers such as Lasse Gustavsson, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and our own Oonagh Duncan, Alex's Feb 1st to 3rd Summit is going to be jam-packed. We sat down with him to find out more.

TRF: What is unique about your vision for how company strategy becomes company legacy?

Alex: When I use the term Legacy, what I’m really talking about is creating a living legacy. Something you can be proud of as an entrepreneur, a business owner, even as an employee in a given business. And this ’something’ needs to go beyond money and address an issue in the world that you are uniquely positioned to solve. You leverage your business as a force for good, while doing well, i.e. making money. It’s about creating a real impact in our communities, society, the ecosystems we operate in, or for the environment, as in nature. It is kind of working on purpose 2.0 -- Creating a legacy requires businesses and entrepreneurs to put their purpose -- their intention -- front and centre and then do something tangible with it. If you address a real issue, client, consumer, people will rally around, support your cause, buy your services or products, and identify with your legacy.

TRF: Why did you decide to take this on?

Alex: The topic of a living legacy has been around in my head for a years; it actually took me a while to make sense out of it, even to formulate it. Attending Harvard's 'Sustainable Business Strategy’ course eventually gave me the confidence to really go all in and make it a centrepiece of my work. So it found it’s way into my upcoming book and it became the theme of my business summit in February. At the event 45 experts from around the world will share inspiration and insights on building profitable businesses that create real impact. Speakers include Professor Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School, Oceanwise CEO Lasse Gustavsson, and author and entrepreneur Oonagh Duncan, to name a few.

TRF: What key takeaways do you expect attendees to leave with?

Alex: Topics we’ll cover at the Legacy event range from building impact-driven and DEIB centred businesses, to value-creation and profit capture, to physical and mental health. We dive into marketing, sales, human resources, operations, M&A, and even more spiritual topics. The common theme however is creating a thriving business and making it a force for the greater good. The key take away is that no matter how small a business might be, we all need to create the ripples that will create bigger waves of positive impact. The event provides entry points and strategies to make it happen.

New Deal: HEARTBREAK: FIELD NOTES ON A CONSTANT CONDITION by Laura Pratt

Journalist Laura Pratt's HEARTBREAK: FIELD NOTES ON A CONSTANT CONDITION has sold to Deirdre Molina at Random House Canada.

HEARTBREAK examines the highs and lows of having and then losing love. A wide-ranging exploration of the subject, Pratt draws on historical and current sources, offering poetic, philosophical, scientific, and psychological explanations and contexts for how we experience romantic breakups.

“Laura's powerful writing hooked me from the very first pages of Heartbreak,” said The Rights Factory agent Kathryn Willms. “She has a gift for capturing moments of extreme vulnerability with beauty and poignancy. Plus a journalist's knack for finding and exploring rich connections between personal experiences and the larger contexts of our world: history, science, culture, art. She writes that heartbroken people are interesting people. I love that. I think anyone who has ever had a broken heart (and who hasn't?) will see themselves in these pages and find their experiences cast in a new, deeper, clearer, and stranger light.”

HEARTBREAK: FIELD NOTES ON A CONSTANT CONDITION is scheduled for publication in January 2023.