Ed Spade has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as director of digital sales and strategy. Previously he was senior account manager for content acquisition for Ingram Content Group.
At Harper Christian, MacKenzie Howard has been promoted to associate publisher of Tommy Nelson children’s books and Thomas Nelson gift books; Jennifer Gott has been promoted to editorial director of specialty publishing; and Holly Halverson joins as editor for specialty publishing. Previously, she managed her own freelance editorial business.
Katy Lynch was promoted to senior publicist for children’s and young adult at Sourcebooks.
Eric Myers has left Dystel, Goderich, & Bourret to start his own agency, Myers Literary Management. He may be reached at eric@myersliterary.com.
Open Road has expanded and restructured its technology and marketing teams. On the marketing side, Gregg Fleischman has been promoted to executive director of consumer newsletters, while Sarah Janet is now director of marketing analytics. Rachel Krupitsky and Colleen Lindsay have both been promoted to director of marketing.
On the technology side, Tamal Roy joins as senior data engineer, while Wolfgang Criollo joins as web engineer. Eddie Lopez has been promoted to senior web engineer. Other recent hires include Joe Zarro, web engineer and Garon Benner, senior product manager.
Picks
The April Pennie’s Pick at Costco is The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.
Awards
Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based publisher and bookseller currently detained in mainland China, will receive the 2017 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award. The award recognizes a book publisher outside the United States who has demonstrated courage in the face of restrictions on freedom of expression, and will be presented to Minhai’s daughter at the PEN Literary Gala in New York on April 25.
In the UK, the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize has named its winners. Kiran Milwood Hargrave’s The Girl of Ink and Stars (Chicken House) won both the overall prize and the younger fiction category. Lizzy Stewart’s There’s a Tiger in the Garden (Frances Lincoln’s Children’s Books) won for illustrated books; Orangeboy by Patrice Lawrence (Hodder Children’s Books) took the older fiction category.
Initiatives
The Association of Author’s Representatives (AAR) has created a Diversity Internship Initiative in partnership with the Publishing Certificate Program at the City College of New York. The AAR will award grants of $2500 to $5000 for summer internships to two students who have demonstrated interest in pursuing a career working in a literary agency.