Once again, the naming of the Nobel Prize for Literature laureate will align perfectly with the Frankfurt Book Fair: The Swedish Academy said the new honoree will be announced on Thursday. (The Peace Prize will follow on Friday.)
In other awards, the Giller Prize will cull their longlist down to a shortlist by noon today. (Then, next week we get the Booker Prize ceremony on the evening of October 14, followed by the National Book Awards finalists on October 15.)
After about 7 months at Regan Arts, Michael Szczerban will join Little, Brown on October 27 as executive editor, acquiring food books, illustrated books, and other nonfiction. Previously he was an editor at Simon & Schuster.
At Clarkson Potter, Ashley Phillips has been promoted to editor.
Bobbilyn Jones has joined Grand Central as publicity manager, Life & Style. Previously she was a publicist at Atria. In addition, Tracy Brickman has been promoted to associate publicist.
The San Francisco Chronicle profiles publisher of Ten Speed Press, Clarkson Potter and Harmony Aaron Wehner — who started at Ten Speed Press in 1997. The focus is on how Wehner has helped make Ten Speed int0 a “cookbook leader,” helped by Random House’s resources after it acquired Ten Speed in 2009. Agent Kim Witherspoon says, “I think that they’re now among the top two or three choices of most of my clients. Any cookbook publisher can produce a superior book any day of the week. Consistently creating standout books — that’s what’s hard.” Amanda Hesser says of Wehner, “We admired how he embraced the food movement, and let cookbook writers and chefs and bloggers express themselves through their books rather than the conventions of cookbook publishing. He’s opened up the possibilities of what a cookbook can be.”
Diane Chamberlain‘s NECESSARY LIES (A 2013 Publishers Lunch Buzz Book) is the Target Book Club pick for October.
Imprisoned serial killer Dennis Rader, known as the BTK killer, said in a letter from a prison that a team is “close to a deal” to publish a book he has cooperated on. Academic author and professor of forensic psychology and at DeSales University Katherine Ramsland is writing the book: “I’m trying to make this a serious effort that will have some benefit for people who study this kind of crime.” Rader writes his is cooperating to held raise money for the families his victims (to whom he signed over his media rights). “People like me, need to be under stood, so the criminal professional field, can better under stand, the criminal mind. That would be my way helping debt to society.” Rader’s daughter spoke out recently about the forthcoming release of the movie A Good Marriage, based on a Stephen King novella, saying she thought the story was “exploiting” her family.
The author who publishes as Zane, (her real name is Kristina Laferne Roberts,) filed for bankruptcy in a Maryland court in June, the Washington Post reports. Earlier in the year the state had named her one of their top “tax cheats.” She listed assets of over $1.4 million (primarily real estate), and liabilities of over $3.4 million, including approximately $337,000 in back taxes owed to Maryland. The Post cites court records from the federal government asserting that she owes the IRS over $540,000 as well.
M. David Detweiler IV, 67, ceo and chairman of Stackpole Books, died September 27. Publisher and acting ceo Judith Schnell says, “He was a gentleman in every sense of the word. If there were a decision to be made, David would always come down on the side of doing the right thing, doing the good thing. Noble, that sounds old-fashioned but in a way he was old-fashioned.” Stackpole Books was created by Detweiler’s grandfather in the 1930s.