The James Beard Foundation announced their 2022 media awards, with The Zuni Café Cookbook by Judy Rodgers entering the Cookbook Hall of Fame and Mooncakes and Milk Bread: Sweet and Savory Recipes Inspired by Chinese Bakeries by Kristina Cho winning in both the Baking and Desserts and Emerging Voice categories.
Lambda Literary Awards
Lambda Literary presented their annual Lammy Awards on June 11.
Pen America Union Wins Voluntary Recognition
Pen America United, the Pen America employees’ union, has been officially recognized by management and now moves on to negotiate a contract. In a Medium post, the union wrote that they demanded voluntary recognition on December 9 and have been negotiating since. “We want to work towards a Pen that commits to providing fair and equitable compensation, including clear and consistent policies around salary minimums, increases, and promotions,” they wrote. “A Pen that adequately addresses the root causes of burnout and secondary trauma, and promotes an organizational culture of transparency, equity, and responsiveness.” Pen America had an annual income of $12.3 million […]
People 6/10
Spotify Sees Audiobooks As A “Massive Opportunity”
During the company’s Investor Day on Wednesday, Spotify founder and ceo Daniel Ek asserted that, “We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity.” Spotify’s planned acquisition of audiobook distributor Findaway, which they had expected to close quickly before the end of 2021, is still pending, presumably awaiting regulatory approval. Ek deployed some typically creative/expansive tech-world math to quantify the opportunity they foresee: Audiobooks currently have about 6-7 percent of the market share of the global book market, which he said was around $140 billion, but in “the most penetrated audiobook markets” (presumably Scandinavian countries […]
Reese’s Book Club
The Reese's Book Club pick for June is Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen.