Former longtime Random House publicity executive Barb Burg died on Tuesday, at 50. Burg rose from a publicity assistant at Bantam Books in 1986 to svp, director of publicity and public relations for the Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group. In 2011, she took a position as director of global communications for Reuters News.
A funeral will be held on Thursday, May 1 at 10 AM at Temple Beth Abraham, 25 Leroy Avenue, Tarrytown, NY. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in memory of Barbara Burg Schieffelin to Camp Ta-KumTa, a summer camp for children afflicted with cancer: PO Box 459, South Hero, VT 05486.
At University of California Press, Kim Robinson has been promoted to editorial director. In addition, Deb Nasitka moves up to marketing director, and Rebekah Darksmith has been promoted to deputy director.
Matt Boyd has been named marketing director of the Penguin Press. He has been at the Penguin Group for 9 years, most recently as company-wide publishing manager and manager of special marketing initiatives.
At Trident Media Group, Alexander Slater has been promoted to domestic agent, and he will focus on children’s, middle grade and YA authors. He was a foreign rights agent for TMG, also focused on children’s authors.
Jennifer Abbots has been hired as assistant publicity manager for Harlequin Teen, reporting to Shara Alexander. Most recently, she was associate director of publicity at Holt.
Albert Johnson will retire from the board of directors at Books-A-Million when his term expires, as of their annual meeting on May 30 (which is the same time as BEA). A statement underscores Johnson’s decision “was not the result of any disagreement with the Company on any matter relating to the Company’s operations, policies or practices.”
Nonprofit publisher serving early childhood professionals Redleaf Press has hired Sue Ostfield as sales manager. She was sales and marketing director at Milkweed Editions.
In awards news, Andrew Solomon‘s FAR FROM THE TREE won the UK’s Wellcome Trust Prize.
Clare Wright won Australia’s Stella Prize for women’s writing for The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka. (It’s published by Text Publishing, and does not have an announced US publisher yet.)
Finally, to clarify the post in Tuesday’s lunch, Lindsay Sagnette‘s new title is editorial director, fiction, at Crown and Hogarth.