Rachel Fershleiser will join Counterpoint Press/Catapult/Soft Skull in early February as associate publisher, executive marketing director. She was senior director of marketing at Knopf. Also in February, Alyson Forbes will join the company as associate publisher, head of sales. She was vp, executive director of marketing strategy at Hachette Book Group.
Emma Brodie will join Little, Brown’s Voracious on January 29 as executive editor, reporting to Michael Szczerban. She was previously senior editor for the Morrow Gift line at William Morrow.
At Sourcebooks, Meg Gibbons has been promoted to senior editor, Simple Truths.
At Doubleday, Nora Grubb and Cara Reilly have both been promoted to assistant editor.
At Macmillan Children’s, Kristin Dulaney has been promoted to vp, subsidiary rights.
At Little, Brown Children’s, Savannah Kennelly has been promoted to digital marketing associate.
At Simon & Schuster Children, Jessi Smith has been promoted to associate editor at Simon Pulse and Aladdin, and Anna Parsons moves up to assistant editor at Aladdin.
Matt Belford joins the Tobias Literary Agency as a literary agent. He was previously at the David Black Literary Agency. Maria Rogers also joins the agency. She was previously an editor at Scholastic.
In the UK, Ali Dougal is leaving Egmont to Simon & Schuster Children’s UK in the new position of publishing director, reporting to Rachel Denwood. Helen Mackenzie Smith and Jane Griffiths will report to Dougal. At Egmont, Lindsey Heaven is being promoted to fiction publishing director, and Liz Bankes moves up to editorial director.
Former chief operating officer for Follett Corporation and Baker & Taylor George Coe is returning to library services company Brodart — where he started his career — as president and ceo.
Media
The Atlantic has a new story by Lauren Groff — whom they first published 14 years ago. Executive editor Adrienne LaFrance promises, “We’re setting out to publish fiction with far greater frequency than we’ve managed in the past decade…. We still need stories, and fiction specifically—storytelling is a defining characteristic that makes us human.”
Forthcoming
Ecco will publish WORLD TRAVEL: An Irreverent Guide, by the late Anthony Bourdain and written with his longtime assistant Laurie Woolever, including “a handful of essays by friends, colleagues, and family.” The $40 hardcover will release October 13.
Picks
For the record, Barnes & Noble is soft launching their new Books of the Month program that we reported on last month, not with a press release or site notice but rather through informal signs spotted in some BN stores. January selections include The Lost Man by Jane Harper; Recipe For A Perfect Wife by Karma Brown; and the trade paperback of To Shake the Sleeping Self by Jedidiah Jenkins.
In Awards news, the Jewish Book Awards were presented across multiple categories.
Bookselling
McNally Jackson‘s Downtown Brooklyn location will open in February, though owner Sarah McNally said the official date is yet to be set. The store will be 5,300 square feet, taking up two floors.
Distribution
Humanoids is moving their distribution from Ingram Publisher Services to Simon & Schuster as of March 1.