Co-founder of The New Press and longtime editor in chief and managing director of Pantheon prior to the Andre Schiffrin died in Paris on Sunday from pancreatic cancer. He was 78. The NYT calls him “a publishing force for 50 years, whose passion for editorial independence produced shelves of serious books, a titanic collision with a conglomerate that forced him out to stem losses, and a late-in-life comeback as a nonprofit publisher.” And they certify in print a definition of Pantheon as “a Random House imprint where making money was never the main point.” Bertelsmann’s president of corporate development and […]
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People, Etc.
Alison Callahan will join Gallery Books on December 2 as executive editor. Previously she was executive editor at Doubleday. Shara Zaval has joined The Book Report Network as Editorial Manager of Kidsreads.com and Teenreads.com. Prior to moving to New York in September, Shara was a publicist with the Independent Publishers Group in Chicago. At Chronicle Books, Victoria Thomas has been promoted to associate sales manager. In the UK, David Higham Associates is taking over representation of the Anthony Burgess estate around the world. In awards news, the winners of Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Awards included: Fiction: Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries […]
M&A: Kno At One End, IMG At The Other
Following Friday’s modest announcement of Intel‘s takeover of educational textbook start-up Kno, Om Malik reports “well placed sources who were in the know told us that the company sold for $15 million with some retention bonuses for the employees.” This after raising roughly $75 million in equity and another $20 million in debt. He adds that “earlier this year, the company tried and failed to cut a deal with CourseSmart….In order for the two companies to work together, Kno had to take on all of CourseSmart’s liabilities and at the same time honor its contractual obligations. That deal, which was […]
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At Vintage/Anchor, Andrea Robinson has been promoted to editor, while Emily Giglierano and Jocelyn Miller move up to assistant editor. In addition, Mark Chiusano has joined Vintage/Anchor as assistant editor. Previously he was an editorial assistant at Knopf. Isaac Fitzgerald will join BuzzFeed in December as books editor. Co-owner of the literary website the Rumpus, Fitzgerald was most recently publicity director at McSweeney’s, and will move from San Francisco to New York. At Daniela Schlingmann Literary Scouting Ltd., Cecilia Campbell-Westlind has been promoted to scout. Rupert Holmes’ Broadway adaptation of John Grisham‘s A Time to Kill will close on Sunday, […]
People, Etc.: Coady’s Story Collection Wins Giller
Lynn Coady‘s story collection Hell Going won the Giller prize on Tuesday night. Published in Canada by House of Anansi, it was the one book in contention that did not already have an announced US publisher. She was shortlisted in 2011 for THE ANTAGONIST, published in early 2012 by Knopf. Coady’s US agent Christy Fletcher told us that they “have serious interest and expect to close soon” on US rights for HELL GOING. Michael Signorelli will join Holt as senior editor on November. He has been at Harper Collins for over 8 years. At Holt he will focus on crime […]
People, Etc.
Laura Ferguson will join Open Road Media later this month as vp, special markets. Previously, she was director of premium, corporate and customer driven publishing at Simon & Schuster. Emily Keyes has joined Foreword Literary as an agent. Previously she was an agent at the L. Perkins Agency. French spy novelist Gerard de Villiers, 83, died Thursday in Paris of pancreatic cancer. De Villiers was the author of 200 novels featuring CIA contractor Malko Linge, the first appearing in 1964 and the last published in France last month. Five of his novels will be published by Vintage beginning in 2014, […]