Following the February announcement that Penguin Random House would close two Penguin warehouse/operations centers by 2015 and consolidate all US fulfillment operations into the Westminster, MD and Crawfordsville, IN facilities, there is a now a report on an expansion of that warehouse in Indiana. PRH is adding 350,00 square feet (growing by about 50 percent) and plans to add “up to 313 new jobs by 2016.” The first of the hiring will begin this August.
Walter Dean Myers, 76, author of numerous children’s novels that chronicled struggles of urban youths, died July 1 at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan after a brief illness. Myers served as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature from 2012 through 2013, and his novel ON A CLEAR DAY will be published in September by Crown Children’s. In April 2015, Harper Children’s plans to publish his novel for teens JUBA! Its president and publisher Susan Katz said in a statement: “[Myers] wrote with heart and he spoke to teens in a language they understood.”
In a separate statement, Scholastic ceo Dick Robinson said: “Walter Dean Myers changed the face of children’s literature by representing the diversity of the children of our nation in his award-winning books. He was a deeply authentic person and writer who urged other authors, editors and publishers not only to make sure every child could find him or herself in a book, but also to tell compelling and challenging stories that would inspire children to reach their full potential.”
Louis Zamperini, 97, 1936 Olympian and the subject of Laura Hillenbrand’s bestselling nonfiction book UNBROKEN, died July 2 of pneumonia. RHPG president and publisher Gina Centrello said in a statement: “We have lost a man who gave everything for his country. It has been a privilege to publish his story, UNBROKEN, and to have shared it through Laura Hillenbrand with millions of readers who were inspired by the struggles he overcame and his capacity to forgive. Our thoughts and deepest condolences are with the Zamperini family.”
Colum McCann was hospitalized with significant injuries to his head and face after he was assaulted June 28 outside a hotel in New Haven, CT, where he was scheduled to give a public lecture the following day. Eyewitness accounts indicate McCann was attempting to help a woman in the midst of a domestic dispute and was subsequently attacked, police believe, by the woman’s companion. McCann has been released from hospital and returned to New York, but is “getting dental work” according to his wife, who told the AP he could not comment.
Stephen Colbert’s promotion of Edan Lepucki‘s novel CALIFORNIA has led to a 60,000-copy first printing by Little, Brown — and Lepucki signed 10,000 copies for Powell’s Books.
David Simon has accused Linda Williams, author of ON THE WIRE, of libeling him in a Huffington Post essay adapted from her book. In a post on his website Simon said that when he was asked to review a galley of Williams’ book by her publisher Duke University Press several months ago, he found that “embedded in the original manuscript was a theme, conjured from god knows where by the author, that I had been fired from the newspaper after a falling out with editors that involved an ethical breach on my part. I don’t know how else to say this: There was no ethical breach.”
Simon said he had written to Duke University Press and attempted to correct the record through Huffington Posts’s legal inquiry forms but received no response. “Being fired from any job certainly implies cause. It is defamatory on its face. And when a writer is informed in advance of the facts and chooses to publish such a claim regardless, it meets the definition for libel, and actionable libel even of a public person.”
Tyndale House issued an unattributed statement from the company saying they “stand with Mark Driscoll.” The company insists that Warren Throckmorton’s story in the Daily Beast that we linked to was erroneous — without acknowledging that Throckmorton directly quoted Tyndale senior public relations manager Todd Starowitz.
Tyndale now says they will reprint Driscoll’s A CALL TO RESURGENCE “as sales warrant it” and indicates that they do “plan to publish a softcover edition.” Starowitz apologizes to the reporter in an email, acknowledging he was quoted accurately but “didn’t check with the appropriate people” and was “simply wrong.”
Additionally, Tyndale says they have delayed publishing Driscoll’s next book THE PROBLEM WITH CHRISTIANTIY only “as we look for the best season in which to publish it.” (In the meantime, they have apparently removed the title page from their web site, though it is still listed on Amazon with a January 1, 2015 pub date.)