Mary Pachnos, who has worked in association with Aitken Alexander Associates for the last 20 years, retired at the end of 2016. Her next phase will include volunteering as a guide at London Zoo.
Marilyn Dahl has retired as editor of Shelf Awareness for Readers after twelve years with the publication. Dahl is succeeded by Stefanie Hargreaves as editor, effective Tuesday. Greaves has worked as an editor, bookseller, and reviewer for Ballantine, Girl Friday Productions, HarperCollins, Amazon.com and Book Page.
Robbin Brosterman is joining Bright USA on January 9 as an agent in in the company's New York office. Most recently she was design director at DC Entertainment and art director at Marvel.
Awards
The Costa Book Award category winners were announced Tuesday. Sebastian Barry won for fiction for Days Without End, Francis Spufford took the debut fiction award for his novel Golden Hill, and Alice Oswald won in poetry for Falling Awake. The overall Costa winner will be announced on January 31.
Reprints
Following the sad news of actor Carrie Fisher's death, consumers have been turning to her books with renewed interest. Her November release The Princess Diarist, published by Fisher's longtime editor David Rosenthal at Blue Rider Press, has gone back for two reprints of 80,000 copies as of Wednesday, bringing the title to 188,000 copies in print. Fisher's four backlist titles at Simon & Schuster have gone back for cumulative reprints of over 50,000 copies, a significant boost to her total lifetime sales for the house of approximately 500,000 copies.
