At Canongate, Andrea Joyce has stepped down as rights director after 13 years with the company. Jessica Neale succeeds her as rights and contracts director.
Forthcoming
Penguin Random House will publish a digital cookbook on May 5 to benefit restaurants and their workers, priced at $5.99, FAMILY MEAL: Recipes from Our Community. It features over 40 recipes by chefs and home cooks who publish with PRH imprint, covering what they are cooking and drinking at home right now, and all proceeds will benefit the RWCF COVID 19 Crisis Relief Fund. It includes a foreword from Restaurant Workers’ Community Fund co-founder and president John deBary and an introduction from Penguin Random House US CEO Madeline McIntosh. She writes, in part: “Just as a publisher can’t exist without people making and shipping books (and readers reading them), a restaurant can’t exist without its employees—from those in the kitchen to those providing service—or its customers. As soon as it’s safe and allowed, we customers will be back (delighted to set aside all our newly honed home-cooking skills). Until then, we will hold in our hearts and prayers everyone whose livelihood is dependent on the restaurant world. This book is one humble attempt to do our part to support the restaurant industry. As chefs and publishers, but above all as enthusiastic eaters and customers, we hope this contribution makes a difference.”
Relief
The Authors Guild is leading a coalition of 19 organizations representing writers, visual artists and songwriters lobbying Congressional leaders to expand unemployment benefits to all freelance workers who have lost income due to the COVID-19 crisis. The CARES Act only covers freelancers who have been affected by one of the 11 COVID-19-related reasons and do not have the “ability to telework.” As they underscore in their letter, “the problem isn’t that these [creators] cannot telework or get to their ‘place’ of employment or that their places of employment are closed: the problem is that the previously available work isn’t there.”
Bankruptcy
Two key interim orders in LSC Communications’ bankruptcy proceedings were signed yesterday. The first rules that customer programs can continue, and that the products (including paper, books, etc.) are the customers’ property — in other words, not potential assets for sale. The second ensures that payroll will continue during proceedings. Both orders will be revisited at a May 12 hearing.