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People, Etc.

April 27, 2021
By Erin Somers

Vedika Khanna has been promoted to associate editor at William Morrow.

Penelope Belnap has joined Vintage and Anchor as associate publicist. She previously worked in publicity at Random House.

At Penguin Random House Canada, Susan Burns will become senior managing editor of Knopf Canada, while continuing her roles as senior managing editor of Appetite by Random House, and as director, managing editorial. Cristina DaPonte has been promoted to the role of associate publicist.

Matthew McGhee has joined Harper Christian as associate publisher for the Spanish division, which includes Vida and Grupo Nelson. He was previously worked for Ligonier Ministries, the teaching fellowship of Dr. R.C. Sproul, where he managed Spanish, Portuguese, and French outreach.

Swedish agency Albatros, has expanded on its base of film and TV writers to represent authors. The publishing division is led by Erik Larsson, joined by Maria Ahlin and Nora El Sharif, all of whom were at Partners in Storie. Founders and managing partners Elin Sandstrom Lundh and Martina Osterling are also representing authors now, including Jonas Jonasson. ICM acquired a significant minority stake in Albatros last August.

216
That’s the number of Simon & Schuster employees who signed the petition asking management to cancel their book contract with former vice president Mike Pence, the WSJ reported, which was formally submitted to ceo Jonathan Karp and S&S publisher Dana Canedy on Monday. The language in the petition differs from the publicly posted “statement of solidarity” that others in the industry were invited to sign. The letter indicates, “When S&S chose to sign Mike Pence, we broke the public’s trust in our editorial process, and blatantly contradicted previous public claims in support of Black and other lives made vulnerable by structural oppression.”

With the first Pence book due for publication in 2023, it would be a Penguin Random House book if the pending sale is approved by the Department of Justice.

Forthcoming
House Intelligence committee chair Adam Schiff‘s book MIDNIGHT IN WASHINGTON: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could, will be published October 26 by Random House.

Distribution
Publishers Group West announced nine new sales and distribution clients as of spring 2021: Black Sands Entertainment, Felony & Mayhem, You Live Right, PM Press, Gibson House, Red Comet, Carus Books, Cune Press, and Invisible Publishing.

Initiatives
Reese Witherspoon and Hello Sunshine are newly profiled in a Time feature on influential companies. Witherspoon’s company plans to launch LitUp, a new initiative “designed to override some of the systemic inequities in publishing.” The program aims to foster the careers of 25 women from underrepresented backgrounds over the next five years, selecting its first round of fellows by the end of 2021. Hello Sunshine will choose five writers with a completed manuscript and “offer them access to a network of more than 50 agents, an all-expenses-paid writers’ retreat and a mentor from its pool of former book-club authors.” Witherspoon will help with the later rounds of selection, and as part of the deal, Hello Sunshine has made a “marketing commitment” to help give the authors “a boost in the process of selling their books to publishers.”

Filed Under: Agency News, Free, Personnel

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