Publisher of the Golden Books Young Readers Group Kate Klimo is stepping down as of March 31, Random House Children’s president and publisher Chip Gibson announced internally on Friday. Klimo has worked at Random House since 1984, and spearheaded the acquisition of Golden in 2001. She will be director of creative development at Media Assets Management Associates, where she “will continue turning our books into great TV shows.” (Klimo helped develop The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That! into a PBS Kids show and “has six other shows based on our books in development.”) Gibson notes, “she is certainly a towering figure in the world of publishing, and over the course of her 40-year career, Kate has changed the face of children’s books.”
Editor-in-chief of Random House Books for Young Readers Mallory Loehr will add to her responsibilities as publishing director of the Golden group on March 31, reporting to Gibson. She will manage both the editorial and art departments for both groups.
Golden Books editor-in-chief Chris Angelilli will be promoted to editor-in-chief, executive director, licensed publishing. As part of his new duties he will also oversee Random House Children’s new partnership with Nickelodeon, where it will be the television company’s primary book publisher as of spring 2013.
In other personnel news, former publisher at Rodale and Bloomsbury Karen Rinaldi will join Harper as svp, executive editor on April 16. Rinaldi will acquire up to 24 titles per year as part of a new health and wellness line on subjects like science, nature, sports, food, relationships and the environment. Rinaldi joined Rodale from Bloomsbury in 2008, leaving the company in September 2011.
Writers House founder and chairman Al Zuckerman is stepping down from his leadership position. President Amy Berkower will take over as chairman and Simon Lipskar will serve as president of the agency, which employs 43 people. Zuckerman will continue to represent his extensive client list, which includes Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking, and Michael Lewis.
At Bloomsbury, Laura Keefe has been promoted to director of digital & trade marketing for the adult group, and Jonathan Kroberger has been promoted to associate publicist. For Bloomsbury Children’s and Walker Children’s, Katy Hershberger has been promoted to director of publicity.
Marion Duvert will join les éditions du Seuil in May as editor of foreign fiction on May 2. She spent the past five years as translation rights manager at Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Charles Harmon will join Rowman & Littlefield as executive editor on April 9, working across several imprints, including Scarecrow Press. In this role, he will focus his efforts in library and information studies, archival science, museum studies, and cultural heritage preservation. Previously Harmon spent the past 17 years at Neal-Schuman Publishers.
The World Almanac trade book line is returning to Simon & Schuster for sales and distribution, starting with their 2013 editions. S&S had distributed the line from 2006 to 2009 as well.
Barnes & Noble’s latest BN Recommends pick is Jonah Lehrer’s IMAGINE: How Creativity Works (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Sentinel announced it has moved up Florida senator Marco Rubio‘s memoir AN AMERICAN SON from October to June 19. Publisher Adrian Zackheim told POLITICO: “National interest in Senator Rubio keeps heating up and we want the book out in the world as quickly as possible. It’s important to the Senator and to us that people hear his remarkable story, and that of his family, directly from him.”
BEA announced that singer-songwriter Neil Young will appear at the Special Events Hall on Wednesday, June 6 at 12 PM to speak about his upcoming memoir WAGING HEAVY PEACE (Blue Rider Press). Young will be in conversation with an interviewer to be named later. In addition, Lunch corrects a misspelling in Friday’s dispatch: it is Chris Colfer who will emcee the Wednesday author breakfast.