Longtime St. Martin’s executive Matthew Baldacci will move to Scholastic as vp of marketing for the trade publishing division on April 28. Baldacci will oversee marketing and brand strategy for all trade imprints, reporting to Ellie Berger. He is currently vp, associate publisher, marketing and sales operations at SMP, where he has worked since 1998.
Lauren Donovan will join Penguin Children’s as publicity manager on April 14. Most recently she was a senior publicist at Random House Children’s.
Leonello Brandolini joins Hachette Livre as an international consultant and editor-at-large, reporting to Arnaud Nourry. He was most recently chairman and ceo of Laffont.
At Maverick Publishing Specialists, Darren Gillgrass has been named head of international business development for non-US markets. Previously he was managing director of Informa Healthcare and Custom Publishing Groups. Sophie Durlacher has been named associate and program/project management consultant. Previously she headed up operations at Tribal Group. Finally, Diana Jones has been named marketing associate, chiefly responsible for leading the company’s new Australian office and supporting Maverick’s continuing expansion into Asia Pacific. Previously she was head of marketing at CABI.
The UK Women’s Prize for Fiction (now sponsored by Bailey’s) announced their shortlist:
Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Burial Rites, Hannah Kent
The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri
The Undertaking, Audrey Magee
A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing, Eimear McBride
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt
(As noted previously, Magee and McBride will not be published in the US until later this year.)
A separate UK award honoring women — the Kim Scott Walwyn prize recognizing exceptional women in publishing — announced its five candidates:
Melissa Cox (buyer, Waterstones)
Lynsey Dalladay (community manager, Penguin Random House UK)
Sarah Hesketh (freelance project manager, The Poetry Translation Centre)
Hellie Ogden (agent, Janklow & Nesbit)
Anne Perry (editor, Hodder & Stoughton)
Literary agent Lois Wallace, 73, died April 4 after a long illness. She was an agent for more than 40 years, founding Wallace, Aitken & Sheil in 1974. Eventually, after various partnerships dissolved, she founded the Wallace Literary Agency in 1988. Her clients currently or at one time included Joan Didion, John Gregory Dunne, William F. Buckley, and Ben Stein, who paid tribute in the American Spectator: “she was as loyal as the day is long. She had the elegance of a bygone era. She was fanatical in her determination to get things sold.” A memorial service will take place later this spring.