People, Etc. - Publishers Lunch

Amber Oliver will join Dutton/Plume as editor on August 31, working especially on the new Tiny Reparations Books, as well as acquiring fiction for Berkley. She was most recently associate editor at Harper.

Larry Downs has joined Miami-based Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial USA as director and publisher for Origen, its Spanish-language religious division. Previously, he was a consultant to the imprint for two years and svp, publisher, Spanish publishing, Harper Christian.

Stephanie Kim has joined New Leaf Literary & Media as literary agent. She was previously in publicity at William Morrow and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and also worked in communications at Hulu and Scribd.

Forthcoming
KAMALA HARRIS: ROOTED IN JUSTICE, a picture book about the life of the Democratic candidate for Vice President, written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Laura Freeman, will be published by Simon & Schuster on August 25.

Bookselling
New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton, MA needs to vacate their space by August 31, since the building will be razed by developers. The store is raising money through a crowdfunding campaign to stay in business while they look for a new location. Owner Tom Lyons told the Boston Globe, “The Book Fair has been closed since mid-March due to the pandemic and we couldn’t even process on-line orders with only a few staff who had to stay safely at home. Without being able to generate income we have no revenue, but the bills keep coming in.”