According to sources at HarperCollins, the author Sheila Weller has decided not to write a planned biography of Michelle Obama for the Collins division.
Ms. Weller, a contributing editor at Glamour and author of six other books (including one about the marriage of O. J. Simpson and Nicole Brown and a best seller called Girls Like Us, a three-way biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon) was able to back out of the deal because she hadn’t yet signed the contract. It probably didn’t hurt that the entire Collins division had been shut down as part of a cost-cutting reorganization since the deal happened and Ms. Weller’s editor there, Nancy Miller, was laid off.
Ms. Weller has since dropped her literary agent—Ellen Levine of Trident Media Group—and moved to Suzanne Gluck of William Morris Endeavor. Last week, Ms. Gluck sent editors a proposal for a new book by Ms. Weller: this one, according to publishing sources who saw it, is about Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric and Christiane Amanpour. The winner of the auction that followed, according to Ms. Gluck, was Ann Godoff of the Penguin Press.
