Chief Product Officer and co-president, Direct-to-Consumer Ishantha Lokuge is leaving the company "for personal reasons." President of the higher education division Tim Bozik will add responsibility as interim chief product officer, starting October 4.
Archives for September 2021
Imprints: Zibby Books Launches
Podcaster/”book influencer” and author Zibby Owens is launching Zibby Books. Starting in January 2023, the line will publish 12 books a year, monthly, focused on accessible (“book club”) fiction and memoir, with distribution by Two Rivers. Former longtime publisher of Vintage/Anchor Anne Messitte is consulting publisher, and Catapult editor and co-founder of Black Balloon Leigh Newman is co-founder. Jaunique Sealey is vp of strategy & book club, and Maya Shanbhag Lang is vp of editorial & strategy. Aside from Messitte, the executive team are all authors. Zibby Books promises incentive programs to promote its books and support the community that does […]
2021 Kirkus Prize Finalists
Kirkus announced the finalists for the 2021 Kirkus Prize. The winners will be announced in a virtual ceremony on October 28.
Forthcoming: Michael Wolff Collection for October Recounts Steve Bannon Working with Jeffrey Epstein
Holt will publish a collection of new and old journalism by Michael Wolff on October 19: TOO FAMOUS: The Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful, the Notorious, the Damned. The apparently small number of new pieces feature “recent reporting about Tucker Carlson, Jared Kushner (President Jared, in a published excerpt), Harvey Weinstein, Ronan Farrow, and Jeffrey Epstein.” Wolff tells the NYT that Weinstein “called him during his 2020 rape trial to propose a biography. ‘This book is worth millions,’ Mr. Weinstein told him.” On Epstein, Wolff reports, “He wanted me to write something about him — a kind of a book […]
Protest Planned As NYPL Plans to Close Public Access to Picture Collection
We missed the NYT’s soft feature from early August with hard news for people in creative industries and beyond: The New York Public Library has come to the misguided conclusion that they will restrict public access to this extraordinary resource by early next year. “The collection will be archived, available to visitors only by specific request,” the NYT reported. Director of the research libraries William P. Kelly decided that it is more important to preserve the archive than have people use it. “Either it is ephemera and doesn’t belong in a research library, or else it is an archive that […]
NBF to Honor Karen Tei Yamashita
The National Book Foundation will award Karen Tei Yamashita the 2021 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, to be presented at the in-person National Book Award ceremony in November. (The presenter of the award is to be announced.) Her novel I HOTEL was a National Book Award Finalist in 2010. “A bold and groundbreaking writer, Yamashita’s deeply creative body of work has made an enduring impact on our literary landscape,” NBF board of directors chair David Steinberger said. “Whether it’s an evocative exploration of cities, collaborative performance productions, or connecting the plots of Jane Austen to Japanese American life, […]