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Spring 2024 On the Side

Paging Through New Works from Lawrentians

Literary Lawrenceville alumni have been working feverishly at their keyboards to present new books exploring international espionage, cancel culture, and even ways to get your own book published.

Jim Popkin ’79

Code Name Blue Wren: The True Story of America’s Most Dangerous Female Spy – and the Sister She Betrayed

The incredible true story of Ana Montes, the most damaging female spy in U.S. history, drawing upon never-before-seen material. Code Name Blue Wren is a thrilling detective tale, an insider’s look at the clandestine world of espionage, and an intimate exploration of the dark side of betrayal.

Rikki Schlott ’18 and Greg Lukianoff

The Canceling of the American Mind

The first book to codify “cancel culture” and survey its effects, including hard data and research on what cancel culture is and how it works, along with hundreds of new examples showing the left and right both working to silence their enemies.

Lucinda Halpern ’00

Get Signed: A 6-Step Plan for Finding an Agent, Landing a Book Deal and Becoming a Published Author

Packed with interviews from best-selling authors, leading book editors from Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, and more, Get Signed is the indispensable road map you need right now to get noticed and become a published author. 


Meet Lucinda

“You should write a book!” is a common rejoinder following a friend’s artful telling of a tale. Other people believe they could pen the next Great American Novel. It can be fun to imagine. But there is a wide chasm between that moment of inspiration and the ability to see a book idea through to publication. Where to begin? Lucinda Blumenfeld Halpern ’00 unlocks the code in her new book, Get Signed: Find an Agent, Land a Book Deal, and Become a Published Author, published by Hay House. An experienced agent who helms her own New York-based literary management firm, Lucinda Literary, Halpern takes a turn as author, presenting steps for writers to refine their idea, create a compelling pitch, and land a book deal. One thing to understand? Be resilient. “Because writing is a long road,” Halpern told freelance editor Ellen Brock on Brock’s Novel Writing Advice interview series. “I mean, how many famous stories got rejected – and the greats, right? I mean, J.K. Rowling … One publisher of the thirteen [with whom she shared her Harry Potter manuscript] saw it.”