25 years ago, in the Fall of 1999, after an exciting corporate publishing career in editorial, I launched Joelle Delbourgo Associates, a boutique agency. In truth, I had no idea what I was doing. Yes, I had a lot of experience as a former editor and executive at HarperCollins and Ballantine Books, but starting a lit agency from the ground up was a new experience. I didn’t fully realize the risks or how long it takes to establish an agency in an increasingly competitive publishing landscape. And switching from one side of the desk to the other was much more challenging than I realized. No longer did I have a big publisher, with all of its resources, behind me. Not to mention a steady paycheck and benefits. Thank God for my ignorance.
How far we have come! I think of books and authors as the building blocks of a fluid structure with a strong foundation. Every time I sell a book, I can help to transform a writer’s dreams into a concrete reality. Each book is a messenger of sorts, winging its way through the world, changing lives in some cases, entertaining or instructing. In today’s world, a book can take so many forms: physical, electronic, digital audio, adaptation into other mediums such as theater, television, film, and also reach audiences in languages throughout the world. As each book takes shape, I never cease to be amazed by my excitement. Best of all, I get to partner with teams of brilliant professionals. Yes, it literally takes a village to publish a book–and today, the village is global.
With thanks to all of the authors who put their trust in me and my colleagues. May your highest aspirations continue to take flight! And thanks, too, to the editors who have fought for JDA books by believing, taking risks, and literally putting their jobs on the line.
I have loved every moment of this publishing journey, even with all its difficulties and shortcomings. And I look forward to continuing around the next curve–and the next one after that.
For every parent who’s worried about their child’s weight or size, this insightful book offers an approach to health that focuses on the whole child—not just the growth chart. KIDS THRIVE AT EVERY SIZE: How to Nourish Your Big, Small, or In-Between Child for a Lifetime of Health and Happiness (Workman, August 2024) provides a supportive approach for parents of children from preschool to preteen by a registered dietician who specializes in working with families.
All children deserve a future free of health concerns and one full of self-esteem and wellbeing, no matter their size. Yet, given the rise in childhood obesity, there’s enormous pressure on parents to raise fit, thin kids – even if their kids aren’t designed to be that way. So, what does a healthy, fit child look like, and how can parents actually raise one, especially in a world of abundant food, busy lives, toxic diet culture, and societal pressures? Pediatric nutritionist Jill Castle offers parents a roadmap for navigating the ins and outs of raising children who are larger, smaller, or in-between. Drawn from science and experts in medicine, psychology, exercise, sleep, media, and nutrition, this book helps families establish healthy habits with a heightened awareness of the social issues, health concerns, and psychological impact of growing up in today’s culture, especially when larger or smaller. Kids Thrive at Every Size is a holistic, whole child approach to health—focusing on physical and emotional wellness—and empowers parents to create a positive culture of health and self-esteem in their kids, no matter their size.
Review
“Jill Castle offers sage guidance to parents concerned about their child’s nutrition by promoting a whole-child approach that fosters healthy habits and positive body image regardless of size.”
—Nimali Fernando, MD, MPH, founder of the Dr. Yum Project and coauthor of Raising a Healthy, Happy Eater
“A holistic, practical approach and easy-to-follow advice. Jill Castle offers expertise without judgment.”
—Charlotte H. Markey, PhD, professor of psychology at Rutgers University and author of The Body Image Book series
“At a time when our youth’s mental, emotional, and physical health is in a state of crisis, Kids Thrive at Every Size is the most important book any parent, educator, or medical provider can read. Jill Castle has written the prescription we all need to raise children who flourish at any size.”
—Alexia Vernon, author, Step into Your Moxie, and speaking and thought leadership coach
“In Kids Thrive at Every Size, Jill Castle provides parents and caregivers with a balanced approach to health and wellness for children, from a professional who is at the forefront of the pediatric nutrition field. She reminds us that health comes to kids of all sizes and involves so much more than food.”
—Heidi Schauster, MS, LDN, CEDS-S, SEP, author of Nurture: How to Raise Kids Who Love Food, Their Bodies, and Themselves
“Parents everywhere struggle to meet the impossible standards of raising healthy children in a culture that overvalues appearance. Jill Castle has compiled the most important information and strategies parents need to confidently raise a healthy child at any size. Kids Thrive at Every Size solves a problem that until now felt unsolvable. A true gem!”
—Maryann Jacobsen author of My Body’s Superpower
“Jill emphasizes that all children, regardless of size, deserve to cultivate health-enhancing lifestyle habits, where enjoyment and connection are vital.”
—Reshma Shah, MD, MPH, pediatrician and award-winning author of Nourish: The Definitive Plant-Based Nutrition Guide for Families
“Jill is best known as America’s Pediatric Nutritionist, but she recognizes nutrition is only one part of the whole that makes for a healthy kid. Her book will be my go-to gift for new parents and grandparents.”
—Dr. Chris Rosenbloom, author of Co-Author, Food & Fitness after 50 and Professor Emerita, Georgia State University
“Jill’s approach to body size is brilliant. I highly recommend this book.”
—Sylvia Klinger, DBA, MS, RD, CPT, Hispanic Food Communications, Inc.
“When it comes to child holistic health and overall well-being, Kids Thrive at Every Size may be the most important book you’ll ever read as a parent, caregiver, or pediatric healthcare clinician.”
—Malina Malkani, MS, RDN, CDN, New York-based pediatric dietitian and author of Safe and Simple Food Allergy Prevention
“A much-needed resource that highlights the importance of establishing healthy habits and prioritizing mental well-being at every size. As a dietitian and a mother of two boys, I plan to use this book as a valuable guide and a foundation for meaningful conversations.”
—Andrea (Andy) Mathis, MS, RD and creator of Beautiful Eats & Things
“Jill Castle is a trailblazer in our field.”
—Ashley Smith, RDN and founder of Veggies & Virtue
“Kids Thrive at Every Size is now my top recommendation for my patients.”
—Brandie LaSala, MD, pediatrician and weight management physician
“Kids Thrive at Every Size outlines a framework for thinking about how you can define what healthy means for your family beyond just nutrition in a way that will foster confidence, autonomy, and self-acceptance in your child.”
—Stacie Billis, Cookbook author and podcast Co-host, Didn’t I Just Feed You
“In a world with polarizing views on diverse body sizes and nutrition, Kids Thrive at Every Size validates parent’s feelings while offering empathetic and evidence-based solutions.”
—Kelly Jones MS, RD, CSSD, sports dietitian and mom―—
About the Author
Jill Castle is a pediatric dietitian and childhood nutritionist with over 30 years of experience. She is the founder of The Nourished Child®, a parent-focused website hosting childhood nutrition and feeding resources, including articles, guides, workshops, and courses. She’s the voice behind the popular podcast of the same name. Jill has served on the Board of Advisors to Parents magazine and is currently an expert reviewer for Parents.com. She has been featured as a guest expert for CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Forbes, Newsweek, and many others. She is the author of five books on kids nutrition and is a former contributor to U.S. News & World Report, Very Well Health, Bundoo,USA Swimming and US Rowing.
BETWEEN THE WIRES: The Janowska Camp and the Holocaust in Lviv, by Waitman Wade Beorn (University of Nebraska Press, August 2024) tells for the first time the history of the Janowska camp in Lviv, Ukraine. Located in a city with the third-largest ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, Janowska remains one of the least-known sites of the Holocaust, despite being one of the deadliest. Simultaneously a prison, a slave labor camp, a transit camp to the gas chambers, and an extermination site, this hybrid camp played a complex role in the Holocaust.
Based on extensive archival research, Between the Wiresexplores the evolution and the connection to Lviv of this rare urban camp. Waitman Wade Beorn reveals the exceptional brutality of the SS staff alongside an almost unimaginable will to survive among prisoners facing horrendous suffering, whose resistance included an armed uprising. This integrated chronicle of perpetrators, victims, and bystanders follows the history of the camp into the postwar era, including attempts to bring its criminals to justice.
Review
“A masterful microhistory of the Holocaust. Exploring a major, though now widely forgotten site of Nazi terror from every angle, Between the Wires offers an intensely powerful close-up view of everyday life and death, bringing the Holocaust as a whole into sharper focus. Moving, compelling, perceptive, and thought-provoking, it is an important contribution to our understanding of the Nazi extermination of European Jewry.”—Nikolaus Wachsmann, author of KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps
“This outstanding book resurrects the history of one of the most notorious, and least known sites of slave labor and genocide in World War II. The Janowska Camp, located in Lviv, Ukraine, witnessed the mass murder of up to 80,000 people, mostly Jews, between 1941 and 1944. A place of extraordinary inhumanity, even by Nazi standards, it was also a transition point for hundreds of thousands of Jews in Galicia transported to the Belzec extermination camp. And yet, until Waitman Beorn took it upon himself to reconstruct the horrors that occurred there, it largely disappeared from historiography and memory. This is not an easy book to read, but a necessary one, and we should all be thankful to its author for his tenacious research and unflinching, courageous narrative of atrocity, resistance, and survival.”—Omer Bartov, author of Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz
“Between the Wires is original, finely researched and written, and a deeply compelling account of a place of terrible crimes. . . . I hope this book might induce others to take the steps in the city of Lviv to recognize the full extent of what happened.”—Philippe Sands, author of East West Street: On the Origins of “Genocide” and “Crimes Against Humanity”
“This history of the Janowska camp and the atrocities committed there as well as in the nearby Sand execution site is based on profound expert knowledge. These parts of the book enrich the research available with a wealth of details about perpetrators, victims, and practices of violence. Where possible the author takes a micro-historical and biographical approach in order to condense and vividly present the complexity of the events.”—Thomas Sandkühler, professor in the Department of History of Humboldt University in Berlin
“A remarkable book. . . . The range of sources Between the Wires consults is outstanding, giving it a panoptic feel. It has used the trial testimony to excellent effect, and it also includes local histories, victim diaries, survivor memories, and more.”—Mark Roseman, author of Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany
About the Author
Waitman Wade Beorn is an associate professor of history at the University of Northumbria in Newcastle, UK. He is the author of Marching into Darkness: The Wehrmacht and the Holocaust in Belarus and The Holocaust in Eastern Europe: At the Epicenter of the Final Solution.
This fresh and whip-smart modern retelling of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice—from the authors of the “great beach read” (Bookreporter) Emma of 83rd Street—transports you to summer in the Hamptons, where classes clash, rumors run wild, and love has a frustrating habit of popping up where you least expect it.
It’s a truth universally acknowledged—well, by Elizabeth Bennet anyway—that there’s nothing worse than summer in the Hamptons. She should know: she’s lived
Elizabeth of East Hampton
out there her whole life. Every June, her hometown on the edge of Long Island is inundated with rich Manhattanites who party until dawn and then disappear by September. And after twenty-five years, Lizzy wants to leave, too.
But after putting her own dreams on hold to help save her family’s failing bakery, she’s still surfing the same beach every morning and waiting for something, anything, to change. She’s not holding her breath though, not even when her sister starts flirting with the hot new bachelor in town, Charlie Pierce, and he introduces Lizzy to his even hotter friend.
Will Darcy is everything Lizzy Bennet is not. Aloof, arrogant…and rich. Of course, he’s never cared about money. In fact, it’s number one on his long list of things that irk him. Number two? His friend Charlie’s insistence on setting him up with his new girlfriend’s sharp-tongued sister. Lizzy Bennet is all wrong for him, from her money-hungry family to her uncanny ability to speak to him as bluntly as he does everyone else. But then maybe that’s why he can’t stop thinking about her.
Lizzy is sure Will hates everybody. He thinks she willfully misunderstands them. Yet, just as they strike an uneasy truce, mistakes threaten Charlie and Jane’s romance, with Will and Lizzy caught in the undertow. Between a hurricane and a hypocritical aunt, a drunken voicemail and a deceptive party promoter, the two must sift through the gossip and lies to protect the happiness of everyone they love—even if it means sacrificing their own. But when the truth also forces them to see each other in an entirely new light, they must swallow their pride to learn that love is a lot like surfing: sometimes the only way to survive is to let yourself fall.
Reviews
“Bellezza and Harding put a beachy spin on Pride and Prejudice… Austenites will be over the moon.” —Publishers Weekly“Escape to summer in the Hamptons—a Hamptons bakery to be exact—via the pages of Audrey Bellezza and Emily Harding’s latest page turner. A charming, modern-day retelling of Pride and Prejudice, this sun- and sugar-soaked novel will delight even the most discerning Jane Austen fan. Readers will be enchanted—and are sure to add this talented duo to their list of auto-buy authors.” —Kristy Woodson Harvey, New York Times Bestselling Author of A Happier Life“Elizabeth of East Hampton proves that the only thing better than an east coast beach read is an east coast beach read that doubles as an irresistibly fresh take on the ultimate enemies-to-lovers romance. Endlessly charming and more delicious than the famous sour cherry muffins from Bennet’s Bakery—which I’m still drooling over—this Hamptons-set romp is guaranteed to delight both die-hard Janeites and P&P virgins alike!”—Nicolas DiDomizio, author of The Gay Best Friend“Equal parts poignant and hilariously witty, Elizabeth of East Hampton captures all the charm of Jane Austen’s beloved Pride & Prejudice and makes it fresh and new!”—Liana De La Rosa, author of Isabel and the Fox
“Lovers of Jane Austen and romance, rejoice! Bellezza and Harding have taken the bright, tender spirit of Elizabeth and Darcy’s romance and transmuted it to the contemporary world, along with fresh, infinitely amusing interpretations of one of the most ridiculous and lovable families in literature, the Bennets.”—Kate Khavari, author of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons
Praise for Audrey and Emily’s debut, Emma of 83rd Street
“[A] charming debut… The authors bring plenty of wit to this classic friends-to-lovers tale. Readers will fall in love with Emma Woodhouse all over again.”—Publishers Weekly
“Belleza and Harding have created a glamorous romp that is heartfelt, steamy, and romantic… For fans of the movie Clueless and retellings of classics.”—Library Journal
“A great summer beach read…From its Lilly Pulitzer-colored cover to its Blair Waldorf-type protagonist, this book should be purchased immediately because it’s going to ride off shelves like a vintage Jaguar with the top down.”—Bookreporter
“The best romantic comedy I’ve ever read. A sparkling take on Emma that would make Jane Austen proud.”—Lauren Layne, New York Times bestselling author of Made in Manhattan
“Emma of 83rd Street is a compulsive page-turner with excellent slow-burn tension. A friends-to-lovers instant favorite!”—Sarah Hogle, author of You Deserve Each Other
“Delightfully modern and compulsively readable, Emma of 83rd Street made my Clueless-loving heart sing—a knockout debut!”—Angie Hockman, author of Shipped
“A delightful, modern twist on Jane Austen’s Emma…The crackling tension between him [Knightley] and Emma drives the story, but as in Austen’s original, the relationship also leads both characters to some critical self-examination. Bellezza and Harding balance the introspection with a healthy dose of New York glitz…as with all Austen adaptations, the joy–and there’s plenty of it–is definitely in the journey.”—Shelf Awareness
“Elizabeth of East Hampton proves that the only thing better than an east coast beach read is an east coast beach read that doubles as an irresistibly fresh take on the ultimate enemies-to-lovers romance. Endlessly charming and more delicious than the famous sour cherry muffins from Bennet’s Bakery—which I’m still drooling over—this Hamptons-set romp is guaranteed to delight both die-hard Janeites and P&P virgins alike!”—Nicolas DiDomizio, author of The Gay Best Friend
“Equal parts poignant and hilariously witty, Elizabeth of East Hampton captures all the charm of Jane Austen’s beloved Pride & Prejudice and makes it fresh and new!”—Liana De La Rosa, author of Isabel and the Fox
“Lovers of Jane Austen and romance, rejoice! Bellezza and Harding have taken the bright, tender spirit of Elizabeth and Darcy’s romance and transmuted it to the contemporary world, along with fresh, infinitely amusing interpretations of one of the most ridiculous and lovable families in literature, the Bennets.”—Kate Khavari, author of A Botanist’s Guide to Parties and Poisons
About the Author
Audrey Bellezza is a two-time Emmy Award–nominated TV producer who has spent over twenty years writing, developing, and executive producing nonfiction television shows for a number of networks and streaming platforms. Audrey lives in New Jersey with her husband and two children.
Emily Harding is a writer and TV producer whose work has appeared on numerous networks and websites. When not hunched over her computer perfecting her bad posture, she can be found losing another game of Monopoly to her husband and two kids.
Investigative education reporter and author of The Pages in Between exposes the devastating impact of harsh, ineffective student punishment on millions of American public school students, their families and communities, while offering proven alternatives that restore equity, safety and order to classrooms without hurting kids. (The New Press, word rights, Spring 2027)
Deep fakes. Disinformation. Misinformation. They’re all expertly addressed in Theresa Payton’s MANIPULATED, first published in 2020 (Rowman & Littlefield). Now fully updated and expanded in paperback. This is essential reading for anyone who cares about the ever elusive truth.
Q: Which character would you love to share a meal with?
A: I want to eat expensive sushi with Anna, played by
Bae Suzy in Anna
, to praise her guts and glory.
Q: What’s your go-to comfort rewatch?
A:Reply 1988 has so many familiar adolescent growing pains and joys that I relate to.
Q: Which dramas would you most and least want to visit for a day?
A: I want to visit Goblin: The Lonely and Great God to hang out with Sunny. She seems like a fun unni to go shopping with because of her impeccable taste in style. I want to ask where she got all her shoes from.
The least desirable drama to visit is Kingdom. I want to avoid the zombie virus and a despotic kingdom run by corrupt court members.
BANISH BEDTIME BATTLES, a guide for parents, counselors and psychologists, to helping young school-age children deal with sleep issues, by Ellen Flannery-Schroeder and Chelsea Tucker (Rowman & Littlefield, June 2024) is now available.
JULIAN: The Last Pagan Emperor of Rome, by Philip Freeman. Published by Yale University Press, the audio was released by Tantor, licensed by YUP (June 2024).
Philip’s works are remarkably lively and exciting to read.
Here’s a little about the subject of this volume in YUP’s “Ancient Lives” series.
“When we think of ancient Rome, it’s impossible not to think of Christianity, one of its most notable exports-but what if it hadn’t been? This is the question provoked by classicist Philip Freeman in Julian, an appealing new entry in Yale’s Ancient Lives series, which tells the story of the old faith’s last imperial torchbearer.”-Anna Heyward, New York Times Book Review
Flavius Claudius Julianus, or Julian the Apostate, ruled Rome as sole emperor for just a year and a half, from 361 to 363, but during that time he turned the world upside down. Although a nephew of Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor of Rome, Julian fought to return Rome to the old gods who had led his ancestors to build their vast empire.
In case you missed it, here’s the New York Times’ list of their favorite top ten thrillers of 2023–issued in June 2024, in time for summer reading. We’re happy to see Ben H. Winters’ BIG TIME made the list!
transform a writer’s dreams into a concrete reality. Each book is a messenger of sorts, winging its way through the world, changing lives in some cases, entertaining or instructing. In today’s world, a book can take so many forms: physical, electronic, digital audio, adaptation into other mediums such as theater, television, film, and also reach audiences in languages throughout the world. As each book takes shape, I never cease to be amazed by my excitement. Best of all, I get to partner with teams of brilliant professionals. Yes, it literally takes a village to publish a book–and today, the village is global.
