At Viking/Penguin Books, Rebecca Marsh has been promoted to associate director of publicity. Shelby Meizlik has joined as executive publicist.
Tricia Lawrence has been promoted to senior agent at Erin Murphy Literary Agency.
Awards
The American Academy of Arts and Letters announced recipients for its highest honors for excellence in the arts, including two of last year’s Pulitzer-winning authors. Richard Powers will receive the William Dean Howells Medal for THE OVERSTORY. The prize is “given every five years for the most distinguished American work of fiction published during that time.” Yale professor David Blight, author of six books on slavery, the Civil War, and its aftermath, was given the gold medal for history for having “established a magisterial record of the struggle for civil rights in the United States.” Additionally, Bill Henderson is recognized for “his significant contribution to the arts as founder and publisher of Pushcart Press.”
Relief
The SFWA board allocated $100,000 to help members “who are struggling to afford necessary expenses due to lost revenue from COVID-19 illness or related restrictions.” Members can apply for up to $1,000 of emergency funding to cover the cost of essential needs.
Bookselling
City Lights Booksellers and Publishers, which launched a crowdfunding campaign last Thursday to raise the $300,000 it needed to stay in operation, exceeded its goal and raised over $450,000. CEO and publisher Elaine Katzenberger wrote in a Facebook post, “I want everyone to know that we are incredibly grateful. And we’re so proud and honored.”
Bluebird Books & Cafe in Hutchinson, KS is closing permanently.
Picks
Apple Books posted its Best of April, including Veronica Roth’s Chosen Ones, excerpted and available for download now in our Buzz Books 2020 Spring/Summer sampler. The rest of the list:
Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker
Walk the Wire, by David Baldacci
Stone Cross, by Marc Cameron
Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez
You Deserve Each Other, by Sarah Hogle
The Wedge, by Scott Carney
Joy at Work, by Marie Kondo and Scott Sonenshein
All We Never Knew, by Elena Aitken
First Comes Scandal, by Julia Quinn
Conjure Women, by Afia Atakora
A Duke by Any Other Name, by Grace Burrowes
August, by Callan Wink
Perfect Tunes, by Emily Gould
Pretty Things, by Janelle Brown
After She Wrote Him, by Sulari Gentill
Sigh, Gone, by Phuc Tran