At Atlantic Books, Margaret Stead will join the company in late April as editorial director. She was previously editorial director of The Harvill Press. Current editorial director Caroline Knight has resigned, by will continue to work for the company after relocating to Kent.
Barnes & Noble announced the winners of the 2009 Discover Great New Writers awards: Playwright Victor Lodato‘s debut novel MATHILDA SAVITCH (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), and Dave Cullen‘s COLUMBINE (Twelve).
Daniyal Mueenuddin won The Story Prize for his collection In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.
Chicago’s citywide reading program is still going strong, naming Colm Tobin‘s BROOKLYN as their 18th selection.
Beacon Press is switching their US distribution to Random House Publisher Services as of July 1. Houghton Mifflin, Beacon’s distributor for the past ten years, will accept returns until September 30.
Sam Tanenhaus is relinquishing his duties as editor of the NYT’s Week In Review, though he still is not content with running the Book Review, continuing to write for that section and the paper’s Arts & Leisure section. Editor Bill Keller in his memo refers to TBR as “the best (and not merely because it’s the last) book review in America.”
Observer
Author John Edgar Wideman is publishing his newest work BRIEFS, STORIRES FOR THE PALM OF THE MIND, through Lulu.com as of March 14. It’s called a collection of “microstories” that “unveils an original voice and structure, with storytellers who are eavesdroppers, diarists and haiku historians.” Portions of the collection have already been selected for the O. Henry Prize Stories 2010 and Best African American Fiction 2010 anthologies.
Wideman says in the release “Lulu seems to represent a very live possibility as the publishing industry mutates. I like the idea of being in charge. I have more control over what happens to my book. And I have more control over whom I reach.”
Also: “I have a very personal distaste for the blockbuster syndrome. The blockbuster syndrome is a feature of our social landscape that has gotten out of hand. Unless you become a blockbuster, your book disappears quickly. It becomes not only publish or perish, but sell or perish.”
At the same time, Lulu says he is the first in a VIP service that “takes care of most pre- and post-production work, including design, media outreach and marketing.”
Release
In a related vein, we apparently misunderstood Greenleaf’s release on John Gray–Mind Publishing is a separate company publishing his new book.