Sarah Jessica Parker Is Launching a New Book Imprint, Says Zando President Molly Stern
Molly Stern, founder and CEO of the independent publishing company Zando, exclusively shared with Oprah Daily that Sarah Jessica Parker will launch a new book imprint, SJP Lit. Stern and Parker had previously collaborated on an imprint, SJP for Hogarth, when Stern was senior vice president and publisher of Crown Publishing Group until Stern left her position with the company. Stern then founded Zando in 2020.
“Sarah Jessica’s authentic passion for and commitment to books has long been a source of deep inspiration to me and a guiding light for Zando’s mission,” said Stern. “Reading, discovering, and discussing exciting new voices with her is one of life’s great pleasures. Sarah Jessica is an essential part of Zando’s DNA, and I’m so proud to be able to build and publish with her again.”
An avid, lifelong reader, Parker traces her love of reading and writing to a childhood spent checking books out of her local library. Parker and Stern first connected at a luncheon in 2013, after which Stern sent Parker a copy A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, by Anthony Marra, which Parker instantly fell in love with and would go on to vigorously champion. From there, Parker and Stern decided to form a book club, later recognizing the opportunity to launch SJP for Hogarth as a natural extension of Parker’s authentic passion for books and enthusiastic desire to support and bring attention to talented and underrepresented writers.
As Stern recalls: “It was truly an aha moment for me when I could see that both her taste and her sense of connection to booksellers and librarians and to readers and to the media and using her own social media, what a force multiplier that would be for the trajectory of the books we would have the chance to support.” She says that “with discoverability in crisis and attention fractured, someone as trusted and prominent as Sarah Jessica can concentrate attention.”
Oprah Daily books director Leigh Haber sat down with Sarah Jessica Parker to talk about her plans for the imprint, and the kinds of voices she hopes to share with readers.
Sarah Jessica, I’m so excited that you’re restarting your book imprint—once again partnering with Molly Stern, but this time at Zando. Has your connection to books changed, deepened in any way during the Covid era?
Sarah Jessica: In the early days of what became in essence a lockdown for most of us, I was able to read, though I spoke to a lot of others who said they were feeling such anxiety and uncertainty that they were unable to.
And then I found myself in the same place. I think as time went on, it became harder to focus on being transported because the present felt so overwhelming—reading wasn’t the antidote that I could rely upon. And then I found my way back to it again, and I started flying through books, being completely consumed. And I was so happy and so relieved.
Then when I started working again, I really panicked because I had trouble reading on the set at first, which is what I normally do. I have always counted on books to calm me in the midst of the chaos of a set; I would always have a book, no matter where I was. And I would hide it on a bookshelf on set or in a purse that I was carrying as a character. Or find numerous places to tuck it away. And when they called cut, I would reach for it.
But once I began to relax and to realize that I knew my lines and had taken care of all the other important business, I was able to go back. And that’s where I’ve been for a while. I know you understand because you’re the same. But to be lost in a book, even if you have 10 minutes, to be taken away, for me, it’s just the greatest gift.
What sorts of books will you acquire for your imprint?
I’m always drawn to books that are about really unfamiliar territory or places or people—to global voices and to challenging experiences an author is describing and illustrating and that allow me to try to understand as best I’m able other people's circumstances, cultures, pressures, obstacles.
So it’s about connection for you?
Yes, especially as our world becomes more divisive, there is an inclination toward not being connected, where people seem to find comfort in their tribes versus trying to connect to another person who’s different. I want to be connected to a larger world. And when I understand people’s circumstances in a more detailed way—say, because it’s a writer say from Lagos who can describe life there—even if their problems aren’t my own or the circumstances or the culture or the religion are not my own, I feel so much more capable of listening to people and wanting better for people when I can get a picture of their community in some way, or feel it, or taste it.
You're partnering again with Molly Stern, who founded the independent publishing company Zando after leaving her position at Crown/Hogarth a few years ago. What excites you about that collaboration?
When Molly and I first started talking about what SJP for Hogarth wanted to be, we were really interested in global voices, even if from here at home, whose perspectives were seemingly from a different place. At the time, those projects weren’t as easy to lay our hands on as they are today. Since then, it’s not at all unusual to see authors published from all over the world finding a wide readership.
As we approach this new endeavor, my desire remains to find new voices from Korea or Lagos or Ireland…or, or, or, or, or, or. It seemed slightly more challenging years ago. Now it feels like, yeah, we can find those readers. But we’re going to have to fight for the opportunity to publish the authors.
You are just announcing the new imprint and haven’t yet made your first acquisition. What will be your process in choosing what to publish?
Well, we’ve just started reading manuscripts, and we’re just really starting the same way we did the first time around, which is looking for manuscripts that feel like they fit into the criteria: new voices, underrepresented voices, global voices, and stories that feel original, unique, not familiar. But while there’s a place for every book in the world, I’m not particularly interested in romantic comedies and ladies in New York who live on the Upper East Side. I’m much more intrigued by the author who is sharing something that feels undiscovered or not yet told in book form.
And will your approach to getting these books to market change?
We want our authors to feel much more invested and involved in the process and to know that every acquisition on our end is very meaningful. We’re not collecting a bunch of titles. We are very carefully looking for a small amount of books to publish a year in my imprint. It’s really a personal investment. And of course, Molly has gathered extraordinary editors, just like she did when I was with at SJP for Hogarth, people who are interested and excited in the same kind of storytelling that I am. And I’m aware that finding the right books to publish will take patience. Every time I read a manuscript, I’m like, Oh, please let this be the one, but you can’t force that onto a writer, and you have to just be patient and wait. And as excited as I am to announce the first book, I want it to be a first book that really speaks to what we’re hoping we can accomplish.
Changing the subject for a minute—you’ve been so busy! What has the past year or so been like for you work-wise?
We’re about to open on Broadway in Plaza Suite. Our first preview was Friday. I finished the new HBO show And Just Like That... on November 8 at 8:00 PM. I was put in a van and driven to Providence, Rhode Island, where I started filming Hocus Pocus the next day. I finished Hocus Pocus at 2:00 AM on January 26 and started rehearsals for Plaza Suite Thursday morning, January 27. It’s been insane. Truly.
Obviously, you needed more to do, so you decided to become a publisher again.
Yes.
Well, thank you so much. It’s really great to reconnect.
Oh, thank you, Leigh.
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