• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login
  • Register

Publishers Lunch

The Publishing Industry's Daily Essential Read

  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help

People

September 13, 2019
By Michael Cader

Longtime Barnes & Noble svp, corporate communications Mary Ellen Keating is leaving the company after 21 years “now that the company has found a new owner.” She writes in a farewell letter to booksellers, “I want to wish our new owners, Elliott Advisors, the best of success in continuing our quest, and enhancing our prospects for future growth.” Keating is “rooting for James Daunt, our new leader. He brings much experience and considerable success to his new position, and he is committed to the future of this great company.”

Looking back, she observes, “Being able to participate in a culture as passionate as ours, which made us the best in all the world of bookselling, has been an experience I will never forget. Along the way, I have been fortunate to work with thousands of great authors and great publishers, large and small alike. Their mission and ours was always perfectly aligned. I also got to work with our extraordinary booksellers in the field, who have always been the backbone of our company. Also, with our dedicated Home Office professionals and leadership team who were second to none. Finally, I was able to work alongside Len Riggio, our brilliant, thoughtful innovator and leader.”

AWP (Association of Writers and Writing Programs) executive director Chloe Schwenke was fired last week, after serving for less than six months. Cynthia Sherman and Diane Zinna are acting as interim managing co-directors. Schwenke alleges, via a letter her attorney provided to PW, that “her termination is the result of unlawful discrimination. Dr. Schwenke believes that [board member Rob] Trott could not tolerate having a transgender woman lead AWP. This intolerance would explain why he declined to meet her—until he could instigate a campaign among board members to fire her.”

Winner of three Special Edgar Awards and author of works including 30 Kirk McGarvey novels, David Hagberg, 76, has died. His most recent McGarvey novel, FIRST KILL, was published in May 2019.

Filed Under: Free, Personnel

sidebar

Primary Free Sidebar

Login


Forgot password
Quick Pass users click here to log in
Get Full Access
The publishing industry's essential daily read

Each Publishers Lunch Deluxe subscription includes full access to our searchable multi-year archive of industry news, a nightly email reporting 10 to 50 deal transactions, and our database of industry contacts, scripts, and posting privileges.

Learn More

RSS Automat

  • NYU Launches Five-Day "Advanced Publishing Institute" Program for January 2024 March 25, 2023 NYU site
  • Hachette UK to Publish "Spare Us!" Parody on April 6 March 23, 2023 Publisher site
  • Netflix to Stream Series Based on Ramit Sethi's Book, "How to Get Rich" March 23, 2023 THR
  • James Patterson Signs First-Look Development Deal with Skydance Television March 22, 2023 Deadline
  • "I find it kind of stunning that the [Internet] Archive would put its entire free service at risk over such an obviously wrong stand" March 21, 2023 Dan Kennedy / Media Nation
  • Douglas Stuart's Young Mungo Is Being Adapated Into a TV Series by A24 March 21, 2023 Deadline
  • Reid Hoffman Posts a Free eBook About His Experiences with ChaptGPT-4 March 16, 2023 Free PDF
  • Siri Hustvedt Reveals that Paul Auster Is Receiving Cancer Treatment at Sloan Kettering March 14, 2023 Instagram post
  • John Jakes Dies at 90 March 14, 2023 NYT
  • Barnes & Noble Children's Awards Shortlists March 13, 2023 BN
© 2023 Publishers Lunch. All Rights Reserved.