Starlight Runner Entertainment Launches Kissena Park Press, Builds on Publishing's Grand Tradition

Starlight Runner Entertainment Launches Kissena Park Press, Builds on Publishing's Grand Tradition

NEW YORK, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Licensing and rights sales are key to most book publishers' bottom-line profits, but Starlight Runner Entertainment, Inc., already a knock 'em dead developer of licensed properties for some of Hollywood's best-known names, is reversing the trend. With the launch of Kissena Park Press, a full-fledged trade book imprint, Starlight Runner is determined to create a fertile environment for new, original properties while honoring the industry's grand traditions.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050126/NYW009LOGO )

Jeff Gomez, President and CEO of Starlight Runner Entertainment, today announced the press will publish adult trade hardcover fiction and nonfiction, children's literary fiction and collaborative educational media for children and adults.

Citing Farrar, Strauss & Giroux and Knopf as models for the new house, Gomez and his partner, Mark S. Pensavalle, are both passionate readers who spent their early teens venturing across the sprawling wilds of Kissena Park in working class Flushing, Queens.

Gomez and Pensavalle oversee editorial acquisitions and have begun to accept submissions. Their first title, for which they are issuing an all-out search, is to be published in the fall of 2005. Up to six titles are projected for 2006. National distribution will be handled by CDS, headquartered in New York with warehouses in Jackson, Tennessee.

"We're ready to turn the tables and genuinely foster creative talent," says Gomez. "We're looking for authors with great ideas, not necessarily experienced, who can be nurtured over time. That's the true spirit and heritage of the book publishing industry. And unlike many underfinanced small presses, we have the infrastructure and contacts to market these books properly and really develop the authors' full potential in terms of rights sales and so much more."

Best known for its creative development of franchises and intellectual properties geared to teens, tweens and children, Starlight Runner has worked with a number of Fortune 1000 companies, including Scholastic, Hasbro and the Walt Disney Company, to produce highly successful cross-media entertainment franchises.

CEO Jeff Gomez developed Galyanna, the Lost Land for the $420 million Turok, Dinosaur Hunter video game and licensing franchise, which included young adult novels from Goldenbooks. He also created The Land of Corondor for the Magic: The Gathering trading cards, video games, comic books and novels from Wizards of the Coast, as well as the alternate dimension of Highway 35 for the Hot Wheels World Race comics, video game and computer-animated feature film.

Vice-President of Production & Operations Mark Pensavalle entered the book trade in 1987. He has since served as Production Manager for HarperCollins, where he worked on high-profile projects such as the "secret" Under Fire by Oliver North. Later, at Random House, he worked directly with Dell/Delacorte publisher Carole Baron on several prestigious projects, including Hannibal by Thomas Harris, and with Susan Kamil at Dial Press on the widely regarded Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp.

Starlight Runner, accustomed to working in partnerships, made the conscious decision to accept venture capital from like-minded companies aligned with Kissena Park Press's commitment to book publishing's grand tradition and to its ambition to develop new, original, world-class intellectual properties.

Starlight Runner Entertainment can be reached by calling 212-337-0900, e-mailing Mark Pensavalle at mark@starlightrunner.com or visiting http://www.kissenaparkpress.com/.

For media inquiries, contact Christi Cassidy at 505-986-1142 or christi@KissenaParkPress.com.

Photo: NewsCom: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050126/NYW009LOGO
AP Archive: http://photoarchive.ap.org/
PRN Photo Desk, photodesk@prnewswire.com
Source: Starlight Runner Entertainment

CONTACT: Mark Pensavalle of Starlight Runner Entertainment,
+1-212-337-0900, mark@starlightrunner.com; or For media inquiries - Christi
Cassidy, +1-505-986-1142, christi@KissenaParkPress.com

Web site: http://www.kissenaparkpress.com/


-------
Profile: intent