At Tom Doherty Associates, Stephanie Sirabian has been promoted to senior associate director of advertising and promotion; Anthony Parisi to senior associate director of marketing and school & library; Megan Barnard to associate creative director, advertising and promotion; Michelle Foytek to senior manager of publishing operations; Alex Cameron to senior brand manager; Jennifer McClelland-Smith to senior marketing manager; Isa Caban to senior marketing manager; Amanda Melfi to digital marketing coordinator; Andrew King to marketing coordinator; Natassja Haught to marketing coordinator; and Ariana Carpentieri to marketing coordinator.
At Fairchild Books, Emily Samulski has been promoted to sr acquisitions editor; Jenna Lefkowitz to assistant editor; and Leah Babb-Rosenfeld to publisher for music and sound studies at Bloomsbury Academic.
At Abrams, Borana Greku has been promoted to senior manager, marketing from marketing manager, and Megan Evans has been promoted to assistant manager, marketing from marketing coordinator, both in the Children’s marketing department.
At the Tobias Literary Agency, Matt Belford has been promoted to senior literary agent and director of the adult department. Natascha Morris has been promoted to senior literary agent and director of the children’s department.
Sue Park has joined Barbara J Zitwer Agency as an agent handling YA and children’s books.
Shelf Awareness corrected their report on Pennie Clark Ianniciello that we referenced yesterday. She is leaving Costco Media, but not Costco, and will update further soon.
Legal
Former Foundry partners Peter McGuigan and Yfat Reiss Gendell told the court, via a letter filed yesterday by counsel, that the agency “has established client and operating accounts at a new bank, and the parties are working on putting in place a system that will service the company’s needs for the long term and remain hopeful that the appointment of a receiver will be unnecessary.”
Therefore, they ask for another adjournment on McGuigan’s request for a temporary receiver, to a hearing on April 22 or thereafter. We reported extensively on the broader situation on Monday.
Imprints
Hachette UK’s Octopus Publishing Group is launching Brazen, a new imprint that will publish “books to embolden.” Octopus editorial director Romilly Morgan will lead the imprint, which will be “innovative in its approach, artful in its execution and broad and encompassing in its appeal.” The first titles will publish later in 2021.
Separately, Harper UK has renamed the Egmont business they acquired in 2020 to Farshore. Managing director Cally Poplak sits on a new children’s board, with Ann-Janine Murtagh at Harper UK Children’s and Alex Beecroft at Collins Learning.
Politics
Amazon, responding to an inquiry from a group of Republican senators about the online retailer’s decision to pull the title When Harry Became Sally from the site, said that “we have chosen not to sell books that frame LGBTQ+ identity as a mental illness.” The letter, signed by vp of public policy Brian Huseman, further says the action was not part of a broader campaign against conservative material and voices on Amazon’s platforms, as the senators suggested.