On Thursday night, the National Book Critics Circle presented their 2015 book awards to:
Fiction
The Sellout, by Paul Beatty (FSG)
General Nonfiction
Dreamland, by Sam Quinones (Bloomsbury)
Autobiography
Negroland, by Margo Jefferson (Pantheon)
Biography
Romantic Outlaws, by Charlotte Gordon (Random House)
Criticism
The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson (Graywolf)
Poetry
Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude, by Ross Gay (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press)
David Solomons won Waterstones’ Children’s Book Prize for My Brother Is A Superhero.
The Bookseller’s Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year went to Alan Stafford’s Too Naked for the Nazis.
In People news, Christopher North will take over as president and ceo of Shutterfly on May 31, relocating from London to the Bay Area. He has been managing director of Amazon UK since 2011. Prior to joining Amazon in 2006, North held executive positions at Phaidon and HarperCollins.
Steve Koepp will retire as editorial director of Time Inc. Books after more than 35 years with the company in a variety of positions, including managing editor for Time and executive editor of Fortune. Koepp, whose last day at Time is today, “plans to start a small business while spending more time with his family in Brooklyn,” according to the announcement. In addition, Kostya Kennedy has been appointed editorial director of Time Inc. Books’ bookazine program, reporting to Margot Schupf. He has spent nearly 20 years as assistant managing editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated.
Rio Cortez has joined Abrams as trade sales manager starting Thursday (she was field sales manager at Simon & Schuster Children’s); Mary Hern is the new managing editorial director (most recently, she worked at Sterling); and Samantha Hoback has taken the new role of associate managing editor (she was associate editor at Leisure Media 360).
Bethany Buck will join Skyhorse as editorial director of Sky Pony Press. She has been an agent at Sanford J. Greenburger since leaving Simon & Schuster Children’s, where she had been publisher of Aladdin and Simon Pulse.