Larissa Helena has joined Pippin Properties as manager of subsidiary rights and associate literary agent, having relocated to NY. Previously she was executive editor at Fantástica Rocco in Brazil.
The San Francisco Chronicle has a profile on the return this summer of Berkeley native Steve Wasserman to take over Heyday Books: “Now, in what might seem an improbable new career chapter, Wasserman, at 64, has come home to Berkeley to run Heyday, the scrappy, purpose-driven publisher known for its beautifully made books about the natural environment and native peoples of Northern California…. Wasserman is committed to both affirming and enlarging the traditions and character of the Heyday list.” (The company has until April 1 to find new office space.)
Gordon Cramb writes an elegant obituary for the late Gillon Aitken in the Financial Times: “First came a clink as he deployed a pen to stir his coffee. Thwacks could then be heard while the latest thick typescript was upended on his desk, jostled into a neat post-perusal pile. All the while there wafted the whiff of Senior Service cigarettes, untipped. Aitken, who has died aged 78, drove daily from his garden flat in London’s Kensington to the headquarters, lately at King’s Cross, that he shared with Clare Alexander, his business partner since 1998. On his books was a band of authors who, however big their reputations grew, remained in largely loyal thrall to his talents.”