At Crown, Libby Burton will join as executive editor, starting January 27, reporting to Gillian Blake. She most recently worked at Holt (as did Blake). Matt Inman is promoted to executive editor. Zach Phillips, Aubrey Martinson, and Lydia Morgan have each been promoted to assistant editor.
Longtime St. Martin’s executive editor Hope Dellon announced that she is officially retiring.
Peter Kispert has joined Dey Street Books as an assistant editor.
At Abrams Children’s, Megan Carlson has joined as associate managing editor. Megan Kelchner has joined the design team as a junior designer. Most recently, she worked at Carrot New York, designing and illustrating educational materials.
At Penguin Random House, Lori de Reza has been promoted to senior vice president, Crawfordsville and Reno operations, adding responsibility for the new distribution hub in Reno, NV.
Janna Morishima has launched a literary and illustration agency, Janna Co., focused on children’s graphic novels and visual storytelling. Morishima previously worked at Scholastic and was the director of the children’s group at Diamond Book Distributors.
Literary agent Gemma Cooper has been appointed a director of The Bent Agency UK.
Rowan Yapp will join Bloomsbury UK as publishing director in April, overseeing cookbooks and illustrated nonfiction, after more than 10 years at Vintage UK.
Obituaries
Prolific science fiction author Mike Resnick, 77, died on January 9 of lymphoma. His final novel, The Mistress of Illusions, the second installment of his Dreamscape trilogy, is scheduled for publication April 14 by DAW Books.
Controversies
RWA President Damon Suede resigned on Thursday, amid the ongoing controversy that has resulted in resignation of RWA board members, cancellation of the RITAs, and withdrawal from the RWA national conference by a number of publishers. Suede has been a board member since 2015 and stepped in as president two weeks ago. RWA wrote in the announcement that Suede “has been a passionate advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion issues for his entire life. We thank Damon for his service and wish him all the best in the future.”
Bookselling
TheFrisc has a nice look at what doing well actually looks like for an indie bookstore, focused on San Francisco’s Green Apple Books. Their “expansion was more out of necessity than prosperity, says [co-owner Pete] Mulvihill. Expenses have gone up over the years, but sales have been flat. Mulvihill and [co-owned Kevin] Ryan hope to use economies of scale and spread costs across multiple outlets. ‘Some people have said to me, ‘Wow, three stores! Green Apple must be crushing it!’ It’s almost the opposite,’ Mulvihill says. ‘If we didn’t grow the top line by expanding, it would be harder and harder every year [to survive].'” He adds later, “My wife will tell you that I’ve been saying the sky is falling for the past 20 years, but the sky is still there. I think I operate from a place of fear, but I’m reassured every year.”