Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that evp and chief learning officer Rosamund Else-Mitchell will leave effective June 28. She will receive a year’s salary, among other benefits. An agreement between the parties “also provides for a release of certain claims by Ms. Else-Mitchell against the company, mutual non-disparagement obligations, certain confidentiality requirements, and non-competition and non-solicitation restrictions for a period of 12 months.”
Shannon Donnelly has joined Diversion Books as marketing manager.
Kandi Rich has joined Sourcebooks as graphic designer.
Molly Koecher will join Longleaf Services as operations manager. She was previously vice president and general manager of Sunrise River Press, Specialty Press, and CarTech Auto Books. She succeeds B.J. Smith, who is retiring.
After Nicholas Sparks‘ first statement regarding the disclosure of offensive emails he wrote while battling with the headmaster of his Epiphany School fell flat, the author posted an apology on Twitter. It starts: “As someone who has spent the better part of my life as a writer who understands the power of words, I regret and apologize that mine have potentially hurt young people and members of the LGBTQ community.” Later in the statement he says his “greatest regret” is “that I failed to be more unequivocal about my support for the students in question.”
Obituary
Molly O’Neill, 66, food writer and author of The New York Cookbook and the memoir Mostly True, died on Sunday in Manhattan.
Bookselling
Book Passage will close its Sausalito, CA location, its third, opened in 2016 near the terminal to the San Francisco ferry. Owners say the store was underperforming. Employees will move over to the other locations.
Awards
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo (Harper Collins/Electric Monkey) won the UK’s Carnegie Medal, the first writer of color to win in the prize’s 83-year history. The Lost Words illustrated by Jackie Morris and written by Robert Macfarlane (Anansi International/Hamish Hamilton) won the Kate Greenaway Medal for illustration.