Lauren Cerand
Lauren Cerand is the founder and owner of Lauren Cerand Public Relations, and has been active in the field since 2001. In 2025, Morgan Jerkins said, when profiled in Princeton Alumni Weekly, “I knew it would take a village—in-house with HarperCollins and with outside publicist Lauren Cerand—for Zeal to succeed.”
Cerand is available for strategic consulting in 2026, and for book campaigns requested by new clients, she is currently reading for the second half of 2027.
Her publicity list in 2026 includes:
Winter: Generator by Rinny Gremaud, a debut novel, translated by Holly James, that Shelf Awareness says, “provides a deeply meditative examination of identity,” Foreword Reviews called “enthralling, genre-bending,” and Publishers Weekly says, “leaves readers with much to chew on,” (Schaffner Press, January). Hostages: A Counter-History of Colonial Plunder by Taina Tervonen, translated by Sara Hanaburgh (Schaffner Press, February). Read an interview at the Washington Independent Review of Books, which notes, “Tervonen’s investigation follows the long effort to bring these objects home and finds in the story a wider reckoning with what colonial plunder truly costs.”
Spring: The Daughters, by “historian-turned-novelist” Joanna Margaret (Mysterious Press, March), interviewed on WHMP’s Writers’ Block with Megan Zinn, who said, “I love a book that makes the work of librarians exciting…librarians as heroes, particularly in a thriller.” In late March, “Superbook,” created by the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, kicked off with a festival to bring together top Italian authors and American readers that Publishers Weekly deemed “original.” In May, two newly reissued novels by Howard Rodman, Destiny Express, praised by Alta as, “Boldly imagined, full of glamour and peril, this expressionist novel considers what people sacrifice when history leaves them no good options,” and The Great Eastern, which was the subject of a profile at CrimeReads.
Summer: Boman Desai’s new novel, Brahms Comes to Dinner (Schaffner Press, June), excerpted in print and online at the Brooklyn Rail, which notes, “By dramatizing the high-voltage, yet tender, minds of three legendary musicians, Boman Desai has written a When We Cease to Understand the World for nineteenth-Century classical music.”
Fall: Any Kind of Known Tomorrow by Leah De Forest (Betty Books, September), praised by Kirkus as “a compelling portrait of intergenerational and even ancestral attachment and conflict;” Dope Calisthenics by Sylvia Jones (Relegation Books, October 2026), and The Bullet Inside Me by Gustavo Eduardo Abrevaya, translated by Andrea G. Labinger (Schaffner Press, November). Of Abrevaya’s previous novel, The Sanctuary, his debut in English, The New York Times Book Review said, “Abrevaya’s gripping prose drips cosmic horror…lovers of nihilistic noir would be remiss to skip this dark gem,” and named it 1 of 10 “Best Horror Books of 2023.” Consulting projects include advising Bennington College’s MFA in Screenwriting Program.
In 2027, authors include Kirmen Uribe, whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages, and will next appear in the U.S. with Life Before Dolphins, translated by Megan McDowell (Coffee House Press, January); Only the Lie is True by Malik Sam, translated by Marjolijn de Jager (Schaffner Press, January); Joanna Margaret’s Souvenir (cover reveal of the “thrilling Parisian Gothic novel” in PEOPLE), coming from the Mysterious Press in March; and Dr. Edith Langford PhD’s Protect Your Mind: Notes from a Black Therapist on How to Be Whole in Today’s America (Broadleaf Books, April).
Cerand holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Industrial & Labor Relations from Cornell University. She serves on the advisory committee of Film Forum, and lives in Baltimore.