Senior vice president of Hachette Digital & Audio Maja Thomas will leave her full-time position at the company after 22 years with Time Warner and then HBG, “for the next exciting chapter of her career.” As ceo Michael Pietsch notes, Thomas “has been a pioneer in the creation of HBG’s ebook and audiobook businesses. She has brought her vision, leadership, and entrepreneurial drive to the development of these key areas of our company and delivered enormously successful results and growth.”
She has led Hachette Audio since 2000, and Hachette Digital since 2005, and “in the past three years Maja has been chief strategist for HBG of the Bookish website.”
Thomas will step down on April 30, and then will rejoin HBG in July as part-time advisor on digital & special projects, reporting to Pietsch. He notes that they are working together “on a new structure for the audio and digital groups, and we will have announcements about that soon.”
Deputy executive director of the Book Industry Study Group Angela Bole will become executive director of the Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) in July, remaining based in New York. Current executive director Florrie Binford Kichler is retiring from the post in June.
Elsewhere, at Simon & Schuster, Molly Lindley has been promoted to associate editor.
Stephanie Fletcher has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s culinary team as associate editor. She previously worked at Martha Stewart Omnimedia where she edited cookbooks, special interest publications and apps.
Margaret Coffee has joined Egmont USA as sales and marketing director. Most recently she was vp of sales at Albert Whitman, and was previously director of field sales for Scholastic where she held numerous sales roles over 16 years. Katie Halata moves up to sales and marketing manager at the company, and Alison Weiss has been promoted to associate editor.
Sourcebooks announced a number of promotions in various departments. In editorial, Leah Hultenschmidt has been promoted to editorial manager, while Anna Klenke and Lindsey Newton both move up to assistant editor. In marketing, sales and publicity, Valerie Pierce has been promoted to marketing manager, while Katie Anderson moves up to marketing associate. Beth Pehlke has been promoted to publicist, while Stephanie Lewis moves up to sales support specialist. In production, Sarah Cardillo has been named director of production, Skye Agnew moves up to senior production editor, and Holly Bahn has been promoted to digital production specialist. Finally, John Donnelly is now senior print buyer, and Colleen Vest has been promoted to education support specialist.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has elected 198 new members. Among the authors inducted in the literature section are Martin Amis,Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, Jeffrey Eugenides, Paul Theroux and Natasha Trethewey. Julian Barnes, Emma Donoghue and Athol Fugard were named honorary foreign members.
John Freeman is leaving Granta on July 15 after five years with the magazine, the last four years as editor, to return to New York and teach creative writing at Columbia University. “Editing this magazine has been a joy and a privilege. I feel lucky to have worked with writers of such extraordinary talent, and colleagues so dedicated to publishing their work well.” Freeman said in a statement. The news was announced a little more than a week after Granta released its Best Young British Writers 2013 list and companion issue. The magazine also said the search for a new editor will start “shortly.”
Priya Doraswamy is leaving Jacaranda Literary to open her own agency, Lotus Lane Literary on May 1.
In Canada, author of MALARKY Anakana Schofield prevailed over Marjorie Celona, Kim Thuy and others to win the Amazon First Novel Award.