Lara Jones has been promoted to associate editor at Emily Bestler Books. Megan Rudloff has been promoted to associate publicist at Atria.
Conor Mintzer joins Holt as associate editor. He was most recently at Flatiron Books.
Sylvie Carr has founded The Carr Agency. She was previously an agent at Fletcher & Company.
Idea Architects has launched a new division called Idea Architects: True focused on “inspirational and compelling memoirs and true stories that have the power to change hearts and minds.” Author Lara Love Hardin will develop and represent the books for the new unit.
Author Janet Evanovich is switching agents yet again, moving to The Story Factory. Most recently she was represented by Jennifer Rudolph Walsh (and previously has been represented by people including her son Peter, and Robert Gottlieb at Trident Media Group). Peter Evanovich and daughter Alex Evanovich are moving with her to the agency. Deadline, which trades Story Factory “exclusives” for enthusiastic coverage, says “one effort will be to build a co-author program to create new properties and franchise book series.”
Megan Evans has been promoted to marketing coordinator at Abrams Children’s. She was previously marketing & publicity assistant.
Jazmin Welch joins Arsenal Pulp Press as designer and production manager.
Sara Wigal recently joined Belmont University full-time as director of the publishing program.
Obituary
Co-founder of publisher Stein and Day in 1962 and “visionary editor who helped fashion a collection of trenchant essays by James Baldwin into a literary classic,” Sol Stein, 92, died at home from complications of dementia.
Awards
The Center for Fiction announced its shortlist for the First Novel Prize:
The Unpassing, by Chia-Chia Lin (Farrar, Straus)
Disappearing Earth, by Julia Phillips (Knopf)
Bangkok Wakes to Rain, by Pitchaya Sudbanthad (Riverhead)
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong (Penguin Press)
Fall Back Down When I Die, by Joe Wilkins (Little, Brown)
American Spy, by Lauren Wilkinson (Random House)
In West Mills, by De’Shawn Charles Winslow (Bloomsbury)
Imprints
Hearst Magazines is launching two new book imprints, Hearst Home, publishing illustrated lifestyle books, and Hearst Home Kids, which will publish children’s books. Hearst Books vice president and publisher Jacqueline Deval will lead the new imprints, which will include cookbooks, diet, nutrition, health & wellness, decorating, pop culture and self-help books, set to launch next March and planning to release 12 titles in 2020. Random House Publisher Services will sell and distribute the two imprints worldwide. Sterling Publishing, which has been a longtime partner of Hearst Books, will continue to sell the backlist titles they have previously published.
Bookselling
MacArthur Fellow author Kelly Link and her husband Gavin J. Grant are buying White Square Books in Easthampton, MA. The couple also runs Small Beer Press. They plan to rename the store Book Moon and hold a soft open in October.