The Wylie Agency is launching a new venture, The Wylie Agency España, with Cristóbal Pera overseeing the new unit, starting in September. Pera previously spent more than a decade at Penguin Random House Mexico, where he was most recently editorial director.
Quarto will launch a new children’s book imprint, Seagrass Press, in fall 2016, publishing 12-16 titles annually. Overseeing the imprint is Josalyn Moran, who most recently was vp, publishing at Albert Whitman and children’s publishing director at Chronicle Books.
Margaret Harrison has joined Ingram Content Group as director of product metadata (she was the ebook global supply chain manager at Oxford University Press) and Ed Spade has joined the company as senior content acquisition manager (he was director of digital publishing, for Nickelodeon).
Amy Webster has joined the Frankfurt Book Fair as associate partner rights and licenses and will be supporting the partnership between FBF and IPR License. She was at the Edinburgh TV Festival, prior to which she worked at the London Book Fair for six years.
At House of Anansi Press/Groundwood Books: Gillian Fizet has been promoted to rights director; Erin Mallory has been promoted to director, cross-media group; Jenna Simpson is now sales and marketing manager, national accounts; Suzanne Sutherland moved up to assistant editor, Groundwood Books; and Sarah Salomon has joined the company as print production manager, cross-media.
Suffering from diabetes, high blood pressure and a failing liver, three years ago Pat Conroy got serious about his health and the Washington Post reports on his progress. Conroy gave up drinking, works with a nutritionist, and opened a fitness studio earlier this year. He says, “I have these feelings — as I get these results from doctors — that I may be extending my life. And when I sit down to write, I feel like I am extending the clarity in my writing life.” Conroy recently finished a young-adult novel with his daughter Melissa and is working on a new novel about Charleston.”
Awards
The Center for Fiction announced seven novels nominated for its annual First Novel Prize:
After the Parade by Lori Ostlund (Scribner)
Against the Country by Ben Metcalf (Random House)
Bright Lines by Tanwi Nandini Islam (Penguin)
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma (Little, Brown)
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press)
The Turner House by Angela Flournoy (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
The Unfortunates by Sophie McManus (Farrar, Straus)
In the UK, the James Tait Black award went to Zia Haider Rahman for his first novel, In the Light of What We Know.
Picks
The September Target Club Pick is The Same Sky by Amanda Eyre Ward.