In the UK, Juliet Mushens and Robert Caskie have formed a new literary agency, Caskie Mushens. Mushens has left UTA and will bring her clients over with her; Caskie had left PFD, where he was chief operating officer as well as an agent, in early 2016, saying he intended to explore new opportunities “in a related industry.”
Separately, another former UTA agent Sarah Manning has joined the Bent Agency, based in London. She will expand the UK office’s representation into adult fiction and nonfiction.
At Penguin Random House in the US, Debra Polansky has been hired as vp, director of sales for Penguin Children’s, under Felicia Frazier. She previously was publishing director at Studio Fun International.
Philippa Donovan, who operates as Smart Quill in Los Angeles and Toronto, has been appointed literary scout for Mad Rabbit, a production company for high-end drama for the international market, based in LA and Toronto.
Obituaries
UK literary agent David Miller of Rogers, Coleridge and White died December 30 from complications of a heart attack suffered on Christmas Eve. The agency said in a statement: “He was greatly loved by all who worked with him at RCW, by his wonderful clients and by his many publishing friends far and wide. His kindness, intelligence, wit and humanity were unparalleled, and his passing marks a great loss to the publishing world. He is survived by his sons, Freddie and Billy. We will all miss him dreadfully.”
Author and art critic John Berger, 90, died January 2. Berger won the Booker Prize for his novel G (1972) and the same year also produced and hosted the influential BBC miniseries Ways of Seeing.