Julie Strauss-Gabel has been promoted to vp and publisher of Dutton Children’s Books. The unit will publish 10 to 15 titles a year as “a boutique middle grade and young adult imprint with a focus on titles of exceptional literary quality and strong commercial appeal.” Penguin Children’s president Don Weisberg says that Strauss-Gabel will be taking Dutton Children’s “gracefully into the future and I am excited to see her take on this new role at Penguin.”
The move allows Lauri Hornik to return to a sole focus on Dial, where she remains publisher and president. Dial will expand from 50 titles a year to 75, “including a number of authors and illustrators who had previously been published under the Dutton imprint.”
David Moldawer has joined McGraw-Hill Professional as a senior editor, acquiring broadly in the business category, except for personal finance and investing. Previously he was at Portfolio.
Writers House junior agent Stephen Barr is the focus of an NYT “entry level” profile.
Recent National Book Award winner for JUST KIDS Patti Smith tells the Guardian she is 68 percent of the way through a “detective story” set in London. Smith says she has been working on the novel for two years.
If you were wondering who might be the anonymous author of Simon & Schuster’s hypothetical campaign novel O, Time makes a convincing case that it’s Mark Salter. (Among other things, as the co-author of John McCain’s book Salter has worked with Jon Karp for a long time.) The magazine says the credit has been “confirmed by sources,” and also notes that “there is a story early in the book based on a real-life tale that would have been known only to a McCain campaign insider such as Salter.”