Laura Donnini has been named managing director and publisher of Harper Italia, effective February 1, 2017, responsible for the “day-to-day management of operations, establishing strategic and publishing direction, and for driving business expansion in Italy.” She will take over from Paola Ronchi, who “recently made the decision to leave the company after a successful nine year career with Harlequin/Harper.” Most recently, Donnini was ceo of Rizzoli’s RCS Libri. Harper ceo Brian Murray says in the announcement, “I am delighted that Laura is joining HarperCollins Italia. Her prior experience at Harlequin, Mondadori and Rizzoli makes her uniquely qualified to grow our business into one of the largest trade publishing houses in Italy, while working to provide Italian and international writers additional paths to publishing success.”
Emma Brodie will join William Morrow as a senior editor on January 3, reporting to Cassie Jones.
Seasonal celebrations have included a gathering of the international sales community last week hosted by Penguin Random House svp, director, international sales and marketing Cyrus Kheradi to honor four retired executives from the PRH family who helped spread US trade books around the world. They were former Feffer & Simons distributor and Bantam executive David Kotick, who turned 90 this month, and Alun Davies, Bob Michel, Sandy Friedman–who ran, respectively the Bantam/Bantam Doubleday Dell, NAL, and Random House international sales efforts in the sixties, seventies, eighties, and nineties. In a toast Kheradi noted that their “journey has helped shape today’s US book publishing international sales teams, leading to tremendous growth globally for American book exports,” calling their efforts “a guiding light which has inspired us to reach more markets and readers around the world.”
Louise and Len Riggio have given a $1 million gift to Spellman College. Half will fund an annual group of scholars who” have demonstrated stellar academic achievement and who are actively engaged in community service,” and half will support the design and construction of an arts and innovation center.
Cover Reveal
Riverhead has released their jacket design for Paula Hawkins‘ INTO THE WATER (May 2, 2017), once again designed by Scribner art director and freelance designer Jaya Miceli. She tells EW, “It’s rich and creepy and suspenseful.” Like the two sisters in the book who turn up dead at the bottom of a river, Miceli put the title type underneath a fish and photographed it through the water.