At Simon & Schuster Children’s, Teresa Ronquillo has been promoted to marketing coordinator.
Novelist and spoken-word artist Maggie Estep, 50, died Wednesday in Albany two days after suffering a heart attack in her Hudson, NY home. Estep was most recently the author of ALICE FANTASTIC (2009) and earlier, a trio of crime novels set in and around New York City published between 2003 and 2006, as well as two works of fiction based on her spoken-word poems.
In the UK, Waterstones announced shortlists for their three children’s book prizes, to be awarded April 3 (honoring picture books; fiction for children 5 to 12; and books for teens.
Powell’s announced that it will not renew the leases on its two Portland airport concourse bookstores when they are up on June 30, resulting in them closing permanently. A third store located before airport security, The Oregon Marketplace Store, will remain open. Powell’s ceo Miriam Sontz said in a statement that “The Port of Portland is working on a new vision for retail at PDX, and in spite of our efforts to negotiate a renewal of our leases and review other options for maintaining a concourse presence, we were unable to reach an agreement. We regret deeply the closure of these two stores.” Sontz added that Powell’s is announcing the news so far in advance of the actual closing date “in order to work with staff to make this as smooth a transition as possible” and find them jobs in other company stores.
Amy Einhorn is the latest subject of the Poets & Writers interview, talking about her early career at FSG, Villard, Poseidon Press and Warner/Grand Central before founding Amy Einhorn Books at Putnam. Of her sensibility and success, Einhorn says: “I think the main reason I’m here is for my taste. I can sniff out books that might not be the most obvious, and for whatever reason, make them work. Liane Moriarty is an author whose first two books were published as trade paperback originals by HarperCollins, and her track wasn’t great. And I thought that she was terrific, and that she should be bigger—that we could publish her in hardcover. That’s not rocket science. But I feel as if I’m here because I have an eye for books that other people seem to respond to.”