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Trapeze has won the rights to publish Stephanie Land's memoir Maid next January following a five-way auction.
In the book, Land tells the story of a single mother’s journey from cleaning houses to finding a home. Anna Valentine, publisher of Trapeze, struck the deal for UK and Commonwealth rights via Lorella Belli at Lorella Belli Literary Agency on behalf of Jeff Kleinman at Folio Literary Management. North American rights went to Hachette US at auction. The book will be published in the UK in January 2019 in hardback.
Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother's Will to Survive draws on Land's own experience of becoming an unexpected mother at 28 and the years she spent working long hours as a maid while struggling to keep a roof over her daughter’s head.
The publisher's description reads: "While she worked hard to scratch her way out of poverty, scrubbing the toilets of the wealthy, navigating domestic labour jobs, higher education, assisted housing and a tangled web of government assistance, Stephanie wrote. She wrote the stories that weren’t being told. The true stories of those living on the bread line. And the result is this beautifully written and powerful memoir that reveals the dark truth of what it takes to survive and thrive in today’s inequitable society."
Valentine said it took mere pages for her to fall for the "important" book and praised Land for giving a voice to the marginalised.
"After only a few pages I fell in love with Stephanie’s voice and knew I had to publish this important book," she said. "Maid addresses a taboo subject like poverty in today's Western affluent society, where the have-nots are growing at an alarming rate and food banks are more used that ever, and in writing it Stephanie is giving a voice to those whose stories too often go untold."
Land commented: "In striving to publish books that begin conversations, and could possibly change the world in big and small ways, I felt Trapeze's mission was a perfect fit for my story and I’m excited about how Maid will blossom under their care. Their 'One in Four' writing contest for single mothers, and the work they're already doing to lift marginalized voices, is exactly the type of change I am hoping to see come from Maid, and I am excited to join their team."