Perseus Books Group group publisher Bill Newlin announced some changes at the Westview Press unit which reports to him, to “meet [the] challenges” as textbook publishing is in transition, “beginning with a reconfigured editorial department based in Berkeley, and an expanded marketing department based in Boulder.”
Associate editorial director Toby Wahl, senior acquisitions editor Leanne Silverman, and editorial assistant Brooke Smith are leaving the company. Avalon acquisitions director Grace Fujimoto will now manage Westview acquisitions as well as travel, reporting to Newlin. Fujimoto will chair an acquisitions committee that includes Westview publisher Cathleen Tetro and Newlin.
Joining Westview in Boulder in August as associate sales and marketing director is Renee Legatt, who was at Wiley, to help “lead an expanded marketing effort to develop new tools and strategies for online marketing and sales.” Victoria Henson is being promoted to sales and marketing manager, reporting to Legatt.
Elsewhere, at McGraw-Hill’s business group, Casie Vogel has been promoted to associate editor and Zach Gajewski has been promoted to editor.
At Chronicle Children’s, Taylor Norman has been promoted to assistant editor.
Publishing consultant and former Cengage executive Jill Jones is joining Bloomsbury’s board as an independent director. Chairman Jeremy Wilson will retire “over the coming year” after six years in that position. He will step down once a replacement has been selected.
To add to yesterday’s story regarding lawsuits against the late Frank Pearl‘s estate, in the one court judgement rendered so far, last September Washington, DC District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly denied TD Bank’s request for a preliminary injunction. The judge found that the bank “failed to demonstrate that it is likely to succeed” on the claim that the creation of Pearl’s revocable trust was “constructively fraudulent.” Because it was a revocable trust, the assets in question remain “available to Mr. Pearl’s creditors” and are not shielded under DC law. Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote “the weight of the evidence in the record would lead a reasonable factfinder to conclude—consistent with the principle that a revocable trust is a perfectly valid and appropriate estate management tool—that Mr. Pearl simply intended to fashion a structure for the efficient and orderly transfer of his ownership and management interests upon his death.”
The current suits covered by the Washington Post are proceeding under the jurisdiction of Washington, DC Superior Court rather than Federal court, with at least one conference hearing scheduled for mid-October.