Sarah Grimm has joined Crown as publicist, working on the Crown, Hogarth, Broadway, and Tim Duggan Books imprints. Previously she was an associate publicist at Putnam.
Printz Award winner and two-time National Book Award finalist Gene Luen Yang has been named the new as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He says in the announcement, “I’m thrilled and humbled…. Reading breaks down the walls that divide us. By reading, we get to know people outside of our own communities. We gain knowledge others don’t expect us to have. We discover new and surprising passions. Reading is critical to our growth, both as individuals and as a society…. I’m honored to take up that mission myself and to carry on the amazing work of the ambassadors before me.”
George R.R. Martin told fans on his blog that his eagerly anticipated new book “THE WINDS OF WINTER is not finished.” He notes, “Believe me, it gave me no pleasure to type those words. You’re disappointed, and you’re not alone. My editors and publishers are disappointed, HBO is disappointed, my agents and foreign publishers and translators are disappointed… but no one could possibly be more disappointed than me.”
In the end, “I can’t tell you when it will be done, or when it will be published…. I am not going to set another deadline for myself to trip over. The deadlines just stress me out…. It will be done when it’s done. And it will be as good as I can possibly make it.”
Phyllis Bruce at Simon & Schuster Canada was named a Member of the Order of Canada (as were novelists Joseph Boyden and Rohinton Mistry, and founder of the Charles P. Taylor Prize for Nonfiction Noreen Taylor).
In the UK, Stephen Lotinga will take over as chief executive of the Publishers Association on January 18. He has been the parliamentary and health service ombudsman and until last spring, he was director of communications for the deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.
So people are trying apps again. In the latest announcement, Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes will publish Belgravia as an app, updated in weekly installments, starting in April. Then in July, Orion in the UK and Grand Central in the US will publish the text as a hardcover.