University of North Carolina Press director Kate Torrey will retire this summer after 23 years at the press. She first joined in 1989 as editor-in-chief and was promoted to director in 1992. A search committee has been formed as part of the selection process for the next director.
Celeste Fine will join Sterling Lord Literistic on January 30 as an agent, focusing on health, science, food, business, and lifestyle topics. She will also manage foreign rights for the agency’s children’s and young adult list. Previously, Fine was svp, subsidiary rights director for Folio Literary Management.
At Random House Children’s Books, Dana Carey has been promoted to assistant editor at Wendy Lamb Books. Earlier, though not announced to us, Jim Thomas stepped down from his managerial position as editorial director of Middle Grade and YA to focus exclusively on his editorial projects and authors as an editor-at-large. Jennifer Arena took over that managerial role and was promoted to editorial director of Chapter Books (Stepping Stones, Middle Grade, Young Adult).
John Mahaney has joined PublicAffairs as a contributing editor, focusing on acquiring economics, finance and business books. He was most recently executive editor at Crown Business.
The J. Paul Getty Trust has hired Kara Kirk as publisher of Getty Publications, effective April 13. Kirk most recently served for six years as associate publisher at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York. Prior to that, she had been the Getty’s general manager of publications for four years.
In the UK, David Roche will serve as non-executive chairman of the London Book Fair’s advisory board following the retirement of Simon Master, who held that title for five years.
At Jenny Brown Associates in Scotland, former publisher of Hachette Scotland Bob McDevitt is joining the agency, representing commercial fiction, crime writing and non-fiction.
At Book Brunch, Eric Green–partner at BDS, the bibliographic data provider which has a stake in the enterprise–will serve as ceo. Cortina Butler will work as interim managing director as she “considers [her] next move” after working at Reader’s Digest.
Book Expo America will add yet another conference track to its three-day-event this year after acquiring the Book Blogger Convention from Michelle Franz and Trish Collins. Launched in 2010, the Book Blogger Convention will continue to co-locate at BEA. Now it will be fully integrated into the overall activity of the convention itself, taking place on the conference day before the show floor opens, Monday, June 4.
Release
Crown announced that the publication date for Michelle Obama’s AMERICAN GROWN has been pushed back from April 10 to May 1. “The production process for this beautifully illustrated four-color book took a little longer than anticipated, but we are very pleased to be able to publish it in advance of Mother’s Day,” publisher David Drake said in a statement.