Longtime Author Solutions ceo Kevin Weiss is leaving the company for a new position (to be announced separately next week). President of Penguin International Andrew Phillips is taking over as ceo of Author Solutions, which Penguin acquired last July. Phillips led the launch of Partridge, the Penguin Author Solutions partnership in India. Penguin chairman and ceo John Makinson said in the announcement: “This is a bitter-sweet announcement because we shall be sorry to lose Kevin, who has provided the stability and clear leadership that Author Solutions needed in the year after our acquisition. But I always recognised that Kevin would seek fresh pastures in time and that a new chief executive from within Penguin would connect the business more closely to Penguin’s curated publishing activities.”
Makinson added: “Andrew’s impressive range of talents and experience equip him perfectly to extend the international development of Author Solutions, to build on our network of publishing partnerships, and to strengthen the ties with Penguin companies around the world.”
At Gallery Books, Kristin Dwyer has been promoted to associate director of publicity and Alexandra Lewis has been promoted to assistant editor.
Ammi-Joan Paquette has been promoted to senior agent at the Erin Murphy Literary Agency.
Stephen Power has left Wiley following the sale of its general interest books to Turner and is looking for new opportunities. He can be reached at stephenspower@gmail.com.
Granta is closing its New York offices, GalleyCat reports, in the wake of recent departures by deputy editor Ellah Alfrey, art designer Michael Salu, and associate editor Patrick Ryan just over a week after editor John Freeman announced he was leaving the magazine after more than five years.
As expected, the ABA membership has ratified the nominees for new officers and board members: Current vp Steve Bercu of BookPeople in Austin, TX will take over as ABA president for two years, and Betsy Burton of The King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City, UT will become vp and secretary.
Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books and Cafe will serve a second term, and Annie Philbrick of Bank Square Books, Mystic, CT and Robert Sindelar of Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, WA join the board.
Founder of Joseph Beth Booksellers Neil Van Uum will open a new bookstore in downtown Cincinnati in July. The 6,500-square foot space, which is undergoing renovations, will also include a creperie and coffee bar.
Among the Edgar Award winners named Thursday night:
Best Novel: Live By Night, by Dennis Lehane (William Morrow)
Best First Novel: The Expats, by Chris Pavone (Crown)
Best Paperback Original: The Last Policeman, by Ben Winters (Quirk)
Young Adult: Code Name Verity, by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion Children’s)
The NYPL Young Lions Fiction Award nominees were recently announced, with the winner to be named at a ceremony on May 20:
Ramona Ausubel, No One Is Here Except All of Us (Riverhead)
Joshua Cohen, Four New Messages (Graywolf Press)
Katie Kitamura, Gone to the Forest (Free Press)
Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds (Back Bay Books)
Claire Vaye Watkins, Battleborn (Riverhead)