Philip Gwyn Jones will move to Picador and become publisher on June 2. He has been publisher-at-large at Scribe UK. Jones fills the position Paul Baggaley vacates at the end of this month, when he moves to Bloomsbury. (Associate publisher Francesca Main is also leaving Picador, to start a new imprint at Orion.)
Leah Miller has joined Atria as executive editor. She was most recently at Grand Central.
At Del Rey, Sarah Peed has been promoted to senior editor; Tom Hoeler to editor; and Alex Larned to associate editor.
Allison Adler has been promoted to senior editor at Andrews McMeel.
Brooke Parsons has been promoted to assistant director of publicity at Public Affairs.
Ksenia Winnicki has joined Bloomsbury Children’s as senior publicist. She was formerly senior publicist at Tor.
Stephanie Gafron and Stephanie Rocha have both joined Sourcebooks as senior designers.
In the UK, at Zaffre and Manilla Press, Sophie Orme has been promoted to publishing director. Claire Johnson-Creek has been promoted to senior editor.
Former book publisher Beau Friedlander has formed Loud Tree Media, a podcast production company, that will launch with Bookable on March 1. The biweekly podcast, will feature author interviews and is hosted by author Amanda Stern.
TV
Mo Willems signed an exclusive, two-year deal with HBO Max and will be the streaming service’s first artist in residence. They will create multiple animated specials based on Willems’ books, and HBO Max acquired rights to the prveviously announced live-action version of Don’t Let the Pigeon Do Storytime! Greg Silverman’s Stampede Ventures will produce the shows under the deal.
Awards
The Folio Prize announced their shortlist, with the winner to be named March 23:
Vertigo & Ghost, Fiona Benson (Jonathan Cape)
On Chapel Sands, Laura Cumming (Scribner; Chatto & Windus)
Constellations, Sinéad Gleeson (HMH; Picador)
Victory, James Lasdun (Jonathan Cape)
The Topeka School, Ben Lerner (Farrar, Straus; Granta)
Lost Children Archive, Valeria Luiselli (Knopf)
Guest House for Young Widows, Azadeh Moaveni (Random House; Scribe)
Grand Union, Zadie Smith (Penguin Press; Hamish Hamilton)
IP
Ingram Spark formally notified customers that it will try to do what Amazon’s CreateSpace and KDP have failed at: They “will actively remove print content from our catalog that does harm to buyers and affects the reputations of our publishers and retail and library partners.” The initiative, effective April 27, was created “to align with our industry’s needs for content integrity.”
Ingram Spark will remove from its catalog all manner of spammy, deceptive and/or mass produced content designed to mislead online buyers.
Acquisitions
Riverdale Avenue Books has acquired the assets of science fiction and fantasy publisher Circlet Press. They will continue to publish Circlet’s over 170-title catalog under a new Circlet imprint. Founder Cecilia Tan will remain on staff to edit upcoming titles. “Cecilia Tan and Circlet have been an inspiration to me in my publishing career and I am honored to carry on and expand the reach of these classic and ground-breaking works of erotic speculative fiction,” said Riverdale Avenue publisher Lori Perkins in the release.