BEA announced the featured speakers for the Thursday Adult Book & Author Breakfast on May 12: Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging), Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad), and Louise Penny (A Great Reckoning) will speak about their forthcoming books, with comedian and journalist Faith Salie of NPR’s Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! and CBS News Sunday Morning as master of ceremonies.
The NYT Magazine profiles Spiegel & Grau editor Chris Jackson and how he “is building a black literary movement.” They write: “Over the last decade and a half, Jackson has ushered into being the works of category-defying novelists like Victor LaValle and Mat Johnson, polemicist-experientialists like Ta-Nehisi Coates and the civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson and pop-cultural vanguardists like the chef-memoirist Eddie Huang and the rapper-entrepreneur Jay Z. To the extent that 21st-century literary audiences have been introduced to the realities and absurdities born of the phenomenon of race in America, Jackson has done a disproportionate amount of that introducing.”
Lucy Silag has joined Random House as assistant director of publicity. Most recently, she was the director of Book Country.
Janelle Gonzalez has joined Little, Brown Children’s as brand analyst for brand, licensed, and media tie-in publishing. She was most recently at the National Hockey League, where she worked in the consumer products licensing group.
Bill Mickey is taking over as editorial director of Choice, the Association of College and Research Libraries publication reviewing books for academic libraries. Previously, he was editorial director of Folio.
Barbara Tolley & Associates has been appointed US literary scout for La Nave di Teseo in Italy and Bonnier Publishing Fiction UK.
Awards
The UJA-Federation’s annual dinner in May will honor Overdrive ceo Steve Potash, and present Stuart Applebaum of Penguin Random House with their Harry Scherman Service Award.
PEN announced the shortlists for many of their literary awards, including the PEN/Bingham for Debut Fiction:
In the Country, by Mia Alvar (Knopf)
The Turner House, by Angela Flournoy (HMH)
Mr. and Mrs. Doctor, by Julie Iromuanya (Coffee House Press)
The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove)
Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness, by Jennifer Tseng (Europa)
Winners for most of the awards will be announced March 1; winners of the Debut Fiction, Art of the Essay, and Literary Science Writing awards, as well as the PEN Open Book and the PEN/Fusion Prize, will be announced at an awards ceremony on April 11.
Product News
Firebrand Technologies is launching Eloquence on Demand, the new version of their product which delivers print, ebook and audio metadata and digital content to the global supply chain.