Gigi Campo has been promoted to associate editor at Avery.
Liz Stein has joined Mira Books as editor. Previously she was an associate editor at Putnam. Dina Davis is now at Harlequin as assistant editor/editorial assistant working on Harlequin Historical and Love Inspired Suspense.
Mark Gottlieb has been promoted to full-time agent at Trident Media Group.
At the “newly aligned” Blue Rider Press/Plume group, Christina Hu has been hired as associate marketing director (she had been senior marketing manager at Atavist Books), and Wesley Salazar has been promoted to marketing associate.
Liz Ridout has joined Booktrack as chief marketing officer. Previously she was vp, marketing at Kobo. In addition, Cameron Drew has been named vp, publishing, having previously held senior executive roles at BitLit at Kobo.
In the Chicago-area’s well-publicized election, bookseller Becky Anderson at Anderson’s Bookshop has won a seat on Naperville, IL’s city council (placing fourth in a race to fill 8 seats).
Obituaries
Literary director of the Booker Prize and longtime executive at Weidenfeld & Nicolson before that Ion Trewin, 73, died Wednesday morning. The Booker Prize Foundation announced his diagnosis of untreatable cancer last October. Trewin succeeded Martyn Goff (who died only two weeks earlier) as administrator of the Prize in 2006.
Jonathan Taylor, chair of the trustees of the foundation, said in a statement: “Ion will be sadly missed not only by his many, many friends but also more widely in the literary world. His calm, courteous and avuncular demeanour masked a sharp intelligence, shrewd diplomatic skills, a great sense of humour and huge knowledge of and affection for books and book people. In his years as Administrator and subsequently as Literary Director, he helped guide the Man Booker Prize through evolution and development while ensuring stability, continuity and, most important, an effective, efficient, independent judging process.”
They feature a separate obituary, and a form to submit condolences. Details on the funeral and memorial service have not been announced yet.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune honors the life Dan Odegard, 69, who died of multiple myeloma on March 31: “Odegard transformed St. Paul’s Grand Avenue with an iconic bookstore and left his print on many authors and local book people. He championed words and the people behind them and made a career of creating an unbreakable bond between reader and author.”
Awards
Poets & Writers’ $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize was given to X. J. Kennedy.
Distribution
Consortium will distribute Hispabooks and Secret Acres as of June 1.
Partnership
The Smithsonian will publish a line of narrative nonfiction books that aim to “bring the Smithsonian experience directly into the hands of the reader” with Grosset & Dunlap and Viking Children’s, launching on June 23 with 5 titles.
Launched
Grove Atlantic’s Literary Hub is live today.
Renamed
ePubDirect has changed its name to Vearsa (which apparently means “verse” in Gaelic).