SEX IN THE CITY Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, a fictional column by real-life working girl Tracy Quan that currently appears in the online magazine Salon, is about to become a novel. Crown editor Doug Pepper just acquired the book for a high-five-figure sum. Quan says she'll give up her other job for a while: ''Hooking is very absorbing work and so is writing. It's very hard to do both seriously at the same time.''
ROBBED OF A JOB Rob Weisbach, president and publisher of his own division at Morrow, resigned after learning that new corporate parent HarperCollins planned to dissolve his imprint. Weisbach -- credited with creating an eclectic list but criticized for blowing millions on celebrity titles by Whoopi Goldberg and Paul Reiser -- says he plans to start his own company, either as a part of a larger house or independently, with private backing.
SERIAL THRILLER Beginning in January, John Grisham will serialize a semiautobiographical novel, A Painted House, in the literary magazine he co-owns and publishes in Mississippi, The Oxford American. (This is in addition to his legal thriller, The Brethren, due from Doubleday in February.) He'll write the tale in six consecutive installments under the bimonthly's usual deadline constraints, and editor Marc Smirnoff plans to up Oxford's print run from 50,000 to 200,000 to meet projected demand. ''He realized that it would be a grand adventure to wrie this story serially because he's under pressure to write a big chunk every couple of months,'' says David Gernert, Grisham's agent. Adds Smirnoff: ''I just hope he doesn't get writer's block.''
-- Matthew Flamm and Clarissa Cruz
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