Longtime Macmillan editor-at-large John Sterling “has decided to step back from full-time work for the company so he can devote most of his time to starting a new career in politics,” Holt publisher Steve Rubin writes in a memo. Starting April 1 Sterling will work part-time for the publisher “and edit a small number of his authors and acquire only the occasional book.”
Sterling joined the company as president and publisher of Holt in 1998, and transitioned to editor at large in 2009. Most recently, he edited Michael Wolff’s FIRE AND FURY. Rubin writes, “Please join me in applauding John for two decades of superior work and wishing him well in his new pursuit. Luckily for us, his wisdom and editorial acumen will continue to enrich Holt and Macmillan.”
Awards
The PEN America Literary Awards announced their 2018 shortlists in a number of categories. Ursula K. Le Guin received a posthumous nomination for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award For The Art Of The Essay for No Time to Spare (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). The nominees for the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award ($75,000) are:
We Were Eight Years in Power, by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World)
White Tears, by Hari Kunzru (Vintage Contemporaries/Knopf)
The Changeling, by Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
Whereas, by Layli Long Soldier (Graywolf Press)
Bunk, by Kevin Young (Graywolf Press)
Up for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize For Debut Fiction:
Sonora, by Hannah Lillith Assadi (Soho Press)
Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, by Venita Blackburn (University of Nebraska Press)
History of Wolves, by Emily Fridlund (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Her Body and Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
Sour Heart, by Jenny Zhang (Lenny)