Derek Stordahl is promoted to evp, Bloomsbury USA with responsibility for Bloomsbury’s performance across their academic and trade businesses; he was previously head of sales. Cristina Gilbert is promoted to vp, sales and marketing for Bloomsbury’s US adult and children’s divisions.
Alex Glass has formally announced his new literary agency, Glass Literary Management, formed late last year after he left Trident Media Group, where he worked for 13 years. He will continue to concentrate on nonfiction (including prescriptive, narrative, memoir, sports, pop culture, and celebrity); adult literary and general fiction; and children’s fiction.
Heather Flaherty joins the Bent Agency as an agent on February 1. A children’s/YA scout for years, she will focus on YA and middle grade books, as well as select humor and pop-culture nonfiction, and new adult.
Executive director of Minneapolis’s Loft Literary Center since 2007, Jocelyn Hale will step down from her position in August — after celebrating the organization’s 40th anniversary that month.
Klopotek AG is expanding its executive ranks. Peter Karwowski will join the company on April 1 as CTO, and head of Klopotek Software & Technology Services. (He was cto for hgv in Hamburg.) Ernst Lopes Cardozo is being promoted to chief sales officer, responsible for the sales activities of the Klopotek offices in Amsterdam, Paris, London and New York. Chairman of the managing board of Klopotek & Partner Gmbh Klaus-Peter Stegen will become chief operating officer for Germany, Austria and Switzerland. He will also serve as managing director of the newly-established The Publishers’ Forum, a spin-off company that will organize Klopotek’s annual international Publishers’ Forum.
Tim Rahr will leave his position as head of Taunton Press, with Dan McCarthy taking over as interim CEO on February 1. McCarthy “started working with Taunton last summer.”
At Naval Institute Press, Claire Noble has been promoted to sales and marketing director.
Bettina Schrewe Literary Scouting has been appointed US scout for Planeta Brazil.
Obituary
Australian author of The Thorn Birds and over 20 other novels Colleen McCullough, 77, died today. She “had suffered poor health in recent years, losing her sight and suffering crippling arthritis.” Shona Martyn at Harper Australia called her “one of the first Australian writers to succeed on the world stage” and said, “The world is a less colorful place without Col.” At Simon & Schuster, which published McCullough in the US for many years, Carolyn Reidy said in part in a statement: “It has been a privilege to publish her, and a joy to know her these many years,” calling McCullough “a born storyteller of limitless versatility.”
Announcements
Amazon has relaunched their Omnivoracious book blog under the more logical name of The Amazon Book Review.