In the UK, Orion ceo and Hachette UK deputy ceo David Young has officially announced his plan to retire at the end of year. Lagardere Publishing ceo Arnaud Nourry says in part: “For me, one of the great joys of Hachette’s acquisition of the Time Warner Book Group was getting to know David…. Under his leadership, the newly-created Hachette Book Group quickly grew to be one of the most successful and admired publishing houses in the US, discovering great talent and publishing many wonderful and original books and authors to global success…. I want to thank him most warmly for his friendship and support and for his enormous contribution to Hachette Livre worldwide over the last 10 years.” Young adds: “I consider myself a lucky man to have spent 45 years in this wonderful business of ours. I’ve been able to play a part in some truly exciting deals, publications and events as well as some profound changes across that time, and to work alongside some great, great people.”
David Shelley, who moves up to ceo of Little Brown UK this summer, will take over as ceo of Orion as well on January 1. Kate Espiner will move over to Orion from Harper UK around the end of the year to become managing director of Orion, reporting to Shelley. Orion deputy group publisher and managing director for fiction Jon Wood will move up to publisher of Orion in January 2016, reporting to Espiner, taking over from Malcolm Edwards after he retires at the end of the year as well. Current managing director Lisa Milton will serve as a consultant for a period of time after Espiner moves over, and then will leave the company.
At Little Brown UK, Charlie King is being promoted to managing director as of January 1, reporting to Shelley.
Bree Ogden has joined Red Sofa Literary as an agent. Previously she was an agent at D4EO Literary Agency.
Crown announced a number of promotions and new hires in its Community Development department. Alana Buckbee has been promoted to senior manager, while Matt Unhjem moves up to senior web developer and Kevin Jan has been promoted to email marketing manager. Emma Shafer has been named community development manager for Blogging for Books, moving over from Crown’s publicity department, while Ta-Tanisha Williams, most recently executive assistant in the publicity department, moves over to community development associate. Finally, Patrick Lee has joined Crown as data analyst. Previously he held the same position at Fluent, Inc.
Erica Gordon-Mallin has joined Skyhorse as acquisitions editor, focusing on history, politics, true crime, untold stories/cover-ups, counterculture, cutting-edge science, and brain science. Previously she was a senior editor at Moseley Road.
At Bloomsbury Children’s, Emily Ritter has been promoted to assistant marketing manager.
NPR vp of programming Eric Nuzum will leave in June to move to Audible as svp of original content development.
On Saturday, agent Meredith Kaffel married agent Eric Simonoff in New York.
The Hollywood Reporter features Drew Reed, Maria Campbell, Jayne Pliner, Marcy Drogin, Erik Palma, and John Delaney as “six of the very best [film scouts] who handle some of the most aggressive buyers.”
Also from Hollywood, Nikki Finke plans to launch HollywoodDementia.com by the end of June. “After 30 years as a journalist, I’m now going to expose the hard truths and gritty reality of showbiz through creative writing. In fiction, I can be more honest than just sticking to facts…. I want to create a fiction forum not just for my own work but for all the creative writing talent which Hollywood attracts but rarely nurtures.”
The 2015 Center for Fiction Fellows are: Naomi Feigelson Chase, Lisa Chen, Nicola DeRobertis-Theye, t’ai freedom ford, Anu Jindal, Stephen Langlois, Melissa Rivero, Samantha Storey, and Ruchika Tomar.
On Friday, the WSJ looked at 10 big works of fiction to read this summer.
The NYT‘s public editor receives a “frequent” stream of letters “from readers who object to what they see as conflicts of interest” in the Sunday book reviews. Every few years that turns into a column explaining the TBR’s policy. “What editors may see as compelling expertise, readers may see as bias. That’s something that assigning editors should pay even more attention to as they try to get the balance right.”