Alessandra Bastagli has joined Dey Street Books as executive editor. She was previously editorial director of Nation Books.
Warren Bass will leave Penguin Press after almost a year to return to the Wall Street Journal’s weekend Review section, “with a nicely tailored portfolio of commissioning and editing big essays that’ll include lots of ongoing interface with the publishing world.”
At Atria, Ariele Fredman has been promoted to associate director of publicity, and Alison Hinchcliffe moved up to associate publicist.
Katie Zanecchia, formerly a literary agent at Ross Yoon Agency, has joined PEN America as national outreach program director.
Pittsburgh former bookseller Mary Alice Gorman, 74, co-founder of the Mystery Lovers Bookstore, died last Tuesday at 74. Lisa Scottoline noted, “This was the first person who told me, ‘I love your book.’ I just never forgot that. We became good friends after that.” She added, “I just owe her so much and I wasn’t the only author she helped. She championed the authors that she loved.”
Bookselling
A local blog says that a store manager has confirmed that the 26,000-square-foot store Barnes & Noble in Seattle’s Westwood Village will close in January when its lease expires.
Book Fairs
The Frankfurt Book Fair announced their traditional vague statistics about attendance at the just-completed show, which has been roughly flat for years. The organizers said that total visitors declined by 0.5 percent, at 285,024 — and the unspecified visitor number during the three trade show days was 1.8 percent lower than 2017’s unspecified number. (A reminder: FBF actually counts “visits” rather than unique visitors or badges. So in the past, the trade show “visitors” count of approximately 140,000 translates into average daily attendance of about 47,000 people.)
Also at FBF, author Anna Todd cancelled her high-profile interview and signing, scheduled for Saturday, after a group of men “harassed for hours” in the Marriott hotel across the fairgrounds. Her agents at Bookcase Literary said online, “After this incident, she doesn’t feel safe at an event in which these men may also be in attendance.”
Todd wrote on Twitter, “I’m so sorry if I don’t sign at Frankfurt but if these men aren’t identified and removed from the book fair – I can’t consciously sign at this fair. They called us sad, stupid women who they don’t want to f—!” She added, “The men literally harassed us for hours and were kicked out of the bar but came back-when I asked the @Marriott manager what he would have done if they physically assaulted us-he told me he would talk to the police twice.”
Harassment Files
Google does not plan to comply with the subpoena outlined in Stephen Elliott‘s lawsuit requesting names, email addresses, and IP addresses of women who anonymously contributed the S—-y Media Men List. They said in a statement, “We will oppose any attempt by Mr. Elliott to obtain information about this document from us.”
Separately, Scribner responded to our query seeking confirmation about list creator Moira Donegan‘s forthcoming book, referenced in Elliott’s suit. The house says the lawsuit “mischaracterizes the book…which will be a primer on misogyny and sexual harassment. It is not about the list.”