At the Random House Publishing Group, Sanyu Dillon, Theresa Zoro, Susan Kamil, and Scott Shannon have all been promoted to executive vice president — comprising the executive leadership team, along with existing evps Bill Takes and Kara Welsh (whose announcement as publisher Ballantine Bantam Dell was noted Thursday) . RHPG president and publisher Gina Centrello said in the announcement: “Through our many organizational evolutions and publishing expansions, these exceptional people have helped me create an unparalleled publishing strategy for the division, while expertly managing their respective departments. Individually and collectively, they are the best of the best in the business, and I rely on every one of them to help implement our vision for Random House—today and in the future.”
At Harper UK, associate publisher for 4th Estate and Harper Press Minna Fry and editorial director at Williams Collins Martin Redfern have had their jobs eliminated. A spokesperson told the Bookseller the company “regretted” letting them go, saying the move is part of creating a “flatter structure” at 4th Estate and William Collins.
The National Endowment for the Arts is helping to celebrate the holidays with the latest rounded of creative writing fellowships, providing $25,000 grants to 37 authors (totaling $925,000). Recipients include Megan Daum, Anthony Marra, Bill Cheng, Leslie Parry, Tea Obreht, and Celeste Ng.
Steve Jadick, 62, died December 10 in Wallingford, VT after a long illness. Jadick spent more than 40 years in book publishing working for such companies as Viking Penguin, Blackwell North America, Reed Elsevier and, for the past six years, at Tuttle Publishing. Memorial services will be held at 7 PM, Dec. 23, 2015, at Wallingford-Aldous Funeral Home in Wallingford, VT. Memorial contributions may be made to Light on the Hill, 209 Blake Hill Road, Van Etten, NY 14889.
Acquisitions
Rowman & Littlefield “intends to acquire the assets and liabilities” of military and outdoor publisher Stackpole Books. The company publishes 90 titles a year and has a backlist of approximately 1,000 titles. Publisher Judith Schnell will remain with Stackpole. The sale comes in the wake of the death of M. David Detweiler IV, the grandson of E.J. Stackpole and the family’s fourth generation to lead the company, in September 2014.
The Stackpole warehouse in Mechanicsburg will continue to process orders until the end of April 2016, when all order processing and order fulfillment will move to the National Book Network facility in Blue Ridge Summit, PA.