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Workman Children’s Director Jaramillo to Step Down, and More

July 30, 2013
By Michael Cader

Workman Publishing’s director of children’s publishing, Raquel Jaramillo — who writes as R.J. Palacio and authored the bestseller WONDER — will leave that position on October 25 “to devote more time to writing.” She will rejoin Workman in February 2014 as editor-at-large, reporting to editor-in-chief and acting publisher Susan Bolotin. “Jaramillo will complete several projects that are currently under contract and will continue to acquire high-concept, novelty gift books and kits, for both the children’s and adult lists.”

Bolotin notes in the announcement, “Everyone at Workman is enormously excited by Raquel’s success and proud of the work she’s done for us. As for me, I think I saw this coming the minute I turned the last page of the manuscript of Wonder. I knew I had just finished a truly special book by a truly special author who would, one day soon, want to devote more of her time to writing.” The company “will start the process of looking for a new person to lead our children’s department.”

In other personnel news, Gail Gonzales has joined Simon & Schuster in the newly created role of director of integrated marketing, reporting to Liz Perl. Gonzales will help bring S&S authors, brands and content to consumers via non-traditional means including produced on-air broadcast and streamed audio and video programming; thematic large-scale author events; and web-based live events and series. She was previously director of marketing, new media, and publicity at Hay House.

Harlequin announced a number of recent promotions in their production department. Roxanne Finkelstein has been promoted to global managing editor, while Punam Patel moves up to assistant managing editor. Beth Attwood has been promoted to managing editor coordinator, while Jena Karmali moves up to copyeditor.

Former vp of content and community at Flat World Knowledge Michael Boezi has joined startup Libboo (pitched as “as a kind of ‘Google Analytics for Authors'”) in the unfortunately-named post of vice president/Minister of Strategy.

Printer/manufacturer Edwards Brothers Malloy will close one of Ann Arbor plants over the next six to 12 months, “with some positions being closed now” and the possibility of additional layoffs  “as the consolidation progresses over the next year.” President and CEO John Edwards said “It’s a very difficult decision to make…but like most book printers, we.ve seen a decline in longer run offset business.  At the same time our digital operation is growing at a 20 percent clip, so that is where we need to be investing for the future. Having two large offset facilities this close together that are not fully utilized just doesn’t make sense and we need to redirect resources to the side of the business that is growing.”

Separately, RR Donnelly reported better results than analysts were expecting before the opening of the market on Tuesday, and their shares have risen over 16 percent.

A legend in its own time, the archive of the McSweeney’s publishing company has been acquired by the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Founder of the 15-year-old enterprise Dave Eggers says at the end of his statement, “We thank the Ransom Center for taking on our archive and for cleaning out our basement.”

Filed Under: Free, Personnel

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