Kim Thornton has been promoted to senior agent director for Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Penguin Random House Speakers Bureau.
At Waterbrook Multnomah, Andrew Stoddard has been promoted to the new position of lead acquisitions editor.
Amara Hoshijo has been promoted to associate editor and rights manager at Soho Press.
The Fred Rogers Company has appointed Rachel Hecht Children’s Scouting as literary scout for television.
Harassment Files
Executive art director of the Penguin Workshop imprint Giuseppe Castellano resigned from the company, following accusations of sexual harassment by actor Charlene Yi. Castellano posts: “As a result of her online campaign against me, an untenable disruption of business arose—making it difficult for me to continue at Penguin. So, it was with a heavy heart that I decided to resign.” He writes, “Ms. Yi’s story is false. I deny every accusation made by her.”
Yi, who had complained to Penguin Random House’s human resources department and says she provided them with some of her emails, responded on Twitter to Castellano’s post, and reproduced some of those emails. PRH said in a statement provided to PW that it conducted an internal investigation and hired an outside law firm to conduct a separate investigation: “These two investigations have concluded. In the end, it became clear to [Castellano] that his presence at the company had the potential to impact the day to day workings of the Penguin Workshop imprint. As a result, he resigned.”
Awards
The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize went to Julie Lekstrom Himes for Mikhail and Margarita.
Bookselling
New bookstore Riffraff opened in Providence, RI on Monday. The owners are Emma Ramadan and Tom Roberge, who was previously a bookseller at McNally Jackson, managing editor at A Public Space, and editor at Penguin Books.
Barnes & Noble will close its location in San Jose’s Eastridge Mall on January 11. The mall changed ownership last January and the store closure is related to the lease.
Agency News
ICM has pledged to reach 50-50 gender parity by the year 2020, “with an emphasis on the leadership ranks.” Managing director Chris Silbermann tells The Hollywood Reporter, “It’s not enough to have 50 percent [female] employees. Women have to be equally represented in true positions of leadership and influence throughout the company.”
THR says that “roughly 40 percent” of ICM agents and department heads are female, and about a third of its partners. The publishing department is already “majority female,” run jointly by Sloan Harris and Esther Newberg. Additional partners in the literary department comprise Kris Dahl, Jennifer Joel, Alexandra Machinist, and Amanda Urban. (Newberg and Joel serve as two of the three women on ICM’s board, alongside Janet Carol Norton.)