Martha Millard is joining Sterling Lord Literistic in August after more than 35 years running her own agency, the Martha Millard Literary Agency. Her clients include notable science fiction writers William Gibson, Michael Swanwick, Allen Steele, Elizabeth Hand, Marc Weissbluth M.D., Diane Simone Vezza, Julia Scully, and Ian McDonald. In addition, Alison Mackeen will join the agency as an agent, focusing on serious non-fiction across a broad range of categories, including psychology, health, sociology, education, urbanism, lifestyle, history, literature and the arts. Previously she was a senior editor at Basic Books.
In the UK, Suzie Dooré will join Harper UK on September 21 as publishing director of The Borough Press. She spent the past 10 years at Hodder & Stoughton, most recently as editorial director.
Closings
The University of Akron Press will be closed as part of budget cuts at the university, the Akron Beacon Journal reports. Director Thomas Bacher and two staffers will lose their jobs as a result. A frustrated Bacher told the paper he does not know the status of forthcoming titles, and he indicated he has been trying to get information from the university administration for six weeks with no response.
“We triple, no quadruple the number of hits for our books, it’s more than the football team. They don’t get that kind of coverage,” Bacher said. “From a professional standpoint this was not handled professionally at all.” He added, “We’ve never gone over budget here. There was no transparency. There were other ways to save money. Everyone could have shared the pain across the board, but when you’re on the block you’re on the block. We’re just the low-lying fruit to pick. I don’t want to work for a university that values beans over brains.”