Lisa Bankoff has left ICM and established her own agency, Bankoff Collaborative. She says of the move: “I grew up at ICM and had the privilege of daily working alongside some of the brightest minds in this–or any–business. What I look forward to now is the wherewithal to operate outside of a corporate culture and do an even better job of serving the interests of the many clients who have moved with me.”
Knopf editor George Andreou will take over as director of the Harvard University Press in September, following the recent retirement of William P. Sisler. Andreou joined Knopf in 1990, and co-founded Vintage Español in 1994.
Jenna Pocius has joined Red Fox Literary as agent. Previously, she was an editor for Little Bee.
Dana Canedy has been named the next administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes, succeeding Mike Pride. A former senior editor for The New York Times, Canedy won the 2001 Pulitzer for her work as the lead journalist on the “How Race Is Lived in America” series. She is the first woman and the first person of color to hold the position. Pulitzer Prize board chair Gene Robinson says in the announcement, “At a time when media organizations are adapting to technologies and the epithet ‘fake news’ is brandished as a weapon, Canedy’s experience, energy, integrity and passion will help the Board focus on its vital mission: identifying and celebrating the best in American journalism and arts and letters.”
The Book Industry Charitable Foundation is launching a Carla Gray Memorial Scholarship for Emerging Bookseller-Activists Fund to honor the late marketing executive and “support emerging booksellers and their efforts in community building.” They say “this scholarship and its recipients will celebrate and honor Carla’s boundless enthusiasm for the books themselves, her delight in pairing the right book with the right reader, and her faith in the bookselling community.”
Colm Tóibín will receive the Dayton Literary Peace Prize’s Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award, for his body of work that “captures in heartbreaking detail the impact of exile and political conflict on individual lives.”
Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo, 61, China’s “most prominent human rights and democracy advocate,” has died of liver cancer. He was transferred from prison to a hospital for treatment last month. PEN America says he “was a friend and compatriot for writers all over the world who struggle against tyranny using words as their sole weapon.”