Allison Sundstrom has been promoted to associate art director, children’s at Sourcebooks.
Nicole Lyons has been promoted to manager of operations at Wayside Publishing.
Events
The ALA has announced that its 2021 Midwinter Meeting, scheduled for January 22-26 in Indianapolis, will take place virtually due to COVID-19. ALA president Julius C. Jefferson, Jr. said in the release, “In the last few months, we have successfully pivoted our delivery to present the Virtual Event in June and ALA’s Holding Space tour series this summer. Though we very much hoped to be able to meet in person in Indianapolis, the health and safety of conference attendees, ALA members and staff, exhibitors, and other stakeholders are the priority.” The preliminary roster of speakers will be announced in early fall.
Acquisitions
The Bookseller in the UK has been acquired by Stage Media Company, which owns the 140-year-old newsweekly for the theater industry, The Stage. Owner of The Bookseller since 2010 Nigel Roby has stepped down, and the The Bookseller’s editor Philip Jones and director of publisher relations Emma Lowe will join the management team of the new parent company. They report to managing director Hugh Comerford, whose family has owned The Stage since its founding. Conversations about the sale are reported to have started last fall, and terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Roby said: “This is a bittersweet moment. Owning and running The Bookseller has been the greatest privilege of my working life. My overriding desire over the years has been to adapt and galvanise The Bookseller so it can continue its position at the heart of the book trade. To know that The Bookseller and the brilliant team behind it can go forward with confidence is profoundly heartening.”
Comerford added: “The Bookseller and the Stage occupy very similar positions in two of our most important sectors. Bringing the two businesses together will make both of them stronger and give both companies a far better chance of enduring and thriving in the current, challenging environment than they would have done alone. Nigel has passed on The Bookseller and all its operations in robust good health and I am looking forward to building on his work.”