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It's been decades since anyone has written a serious biography of Hugh Hefner (Hef's Little Black Book, co-authored by Hefner and Bill Zehme, to be published in May by HarperEntertainment, doesn't count). Now biographer Steven Watts is giving it a try. The weekly newsletter from Publishers Lunch reports he has sold Mr. Playboy: Hugh Hefner and the Fantasy Life of America to Wiley, "drawn from extensive interviews and unlimited access to Hefner's archives (authorized by Hefner)."
Also from Publishers Lunch: "Los Angeles Times writer Mary Rourke's first novel Mary and Joanna, an historical novel of Mary of Nazareth, told through the eyes of her cousin, Joanna, who married high into Herod's court, but who is consumptive, and therefore personally drawn to Mary's son, this healer that everyone is talking about." It sold to Steeple Hill.