Tim Hely Hutchinson will retire as ceo of Hachette UK at the end of the year, with Little Brown Book Group and Orion ceo David Shelley to succeed him, reporting to Arnaud Nourry, starting January 1, 2018. He will also become a member of the international board of Hachette Livre and a director of Hachette Book Group USA. Nourry said Shelley is “an outstanding publisher and he will be an inspiring and inspired ceo.”
Additionally, Jamie Hodder-Williams, currently ceo of Hodder & Stoughton, John Murray Press, and Headline and Quercus, will add the new role of director of trade publishing of Hachette UK to his current responsibilities. He will join the international board on January 1, heading up Hachette’s international rights deal business and working with sister companies and like Shelley will also join the board of HBG USA.
Richard Kitson will move up to deputy ceo starting January 1. Hodder Education group managing director Lis Tribe will join the executive committee starting July 1. Emily-Jane Taylor will become director of financial planning and analysis, effective January 1, reporting to Pierre de Cacqueray.
Nourry said of Hely Hutchinson: “I wish Tim had decided to stay for longer but he is famously a planner and he has been working towards a crescendo with great results and superb acquisitions…. He has had an amazing career, including the founding of Headline, then Hodder Headline and finally working as my business partner to create and expand Hachette UK. To my mind, his greatest legacy is all the talent he has recruited and developed, including the senior team whose appointments we are announcing today, but also more deeply throughout the company.”
At Open Road, Laura J. Burns has left her position as executive editor and can be contacted at LJBeditorial@gmail.com. Julie Blattberg has also left her position as vp of strategic operations and chief of staff and can be contacted at julieb@julieb.net.
Lucinda Literary‘s UK and translation rights will now be represented by Linda Kaplan at Kaplan/Defiore Rights.
Audio
Jon Hamm will narrate the recently discovered Walt Whitman novel Life and Adventures of Jack Engle. The audiobook will launch on May 30, the day before Whitman’s birthday.
Awards
The American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded their literature prizes, totaling $265,000, going to 19 writers. Arts and Letters Awards in Literature went to: Ayad Akhtar, Chris Bachelder; Paul Beatty; Kathleen Graber; Jennifer Haigh; Dominique Morisseau; Richard Sieburth; and Luis Alberto Urrea. Special awards went to: Judy Blume (children’s literature); Lee Clay Johnson (first fiction); August Kleinzahler (poetry); Elizabeth Kolbert (nonfiction); Robert Macfarlane (young writer from the United Kingdom or Ireland); Karan Mahajan (young writer); Jamaal May (young writer); Lynn Nottage (playwright); Safiya Sinclair (fiction, nonfiction, drama, or poetry); Dana Spiotta (biennial mid-career prize); and Joan Acocella (quality of prose).
Newly elected members were also honored, including: Henri Cole; Junot Diaz; Amy Hempel; Edward Hirsch; Ursula K. Le Guin; Colum Mccann; Ann Patchett; and Kay Ryan.