The NYT says that Republican presidential candidate and Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann will publish her memoir through Penguin’s Sentinel, according to “two people familiar with the negotiations.” Sentinel’s Will Weisser said “we have nothing to announce at this time, adding “we did have a wonderful meeting with her.” Politico writes that Bachmann, who is represented by agent Alex Hoyt, was swayed by Penguin CEO David Shanks. As “a Republican and an observant Catholic — both rarities in New York’s publishing world — Shanks convinced Bachmann that, as a conservative himself, he’d be the right man to handle her book and […]
Authors
People, Awards, and More: McCann Takes IMPAC
People In the UK, publishing director of Transworld’s crime and thriller books Selina Walker will move over to become publisher for Century and Arrow, starting in mid-July. At Transworld, editorial director Sarah Adams will take over Walker’s role; Cat Cobain is being promoted to publishing director of the women’s fiction list; and nonfiction editor Sarah Emsley is moving up to senior editorial director. At HarperCollins, Leah Wasielewski has been promoted to senior director of marketing for Harper, Harper Business and Broadside Books. Bloomsbury sub-rights manager since 2006 Lauren Shekari has left the company. In disclosure forms, Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown […]
People: Loehnis Joins Canongate; Agency Moves
Founder and longtime managing director of Janklow & Nesbit UK Tif Loehnis will join Canongate as senior editor on September 5. In her decade at the agency, Loehnis represented authors including Tilly Bagshawe, Charles Cumming, Jasper Fforde, Julie Kavanagh, and Henry Porter, before leaving in 2010 and taking a short break from the industry. Canongate publishing director Nick Davies said in a statement: “Tif is a perfect fit for Canongate. She has great taste in books, a genuine and straightforward connection with her writers, and a restless curiosity about the future of the industry. I have no doubt Tif will […]
People: Obreht Wins Orange Prize, and More
Tea Obreht has won the 2011 Orange Prize for THE TIGER’S WIFE (Random House/Weidenfield & Nicolson). At 25 years old, Obreht is the youngest winner in the prize’s history. Release Edith Pearlman has won the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the “art of short fiction.” AP The Center for Fiction has named Scribner vp and editor-in-chief Nan Graham its 2011 recipient of the Maxwell E. Perkins Prize. “It seems most appropriate, if not overdue, for the Maxwell Perkins Award to recognize an editor who has for sixteen years published some of America’s most eloquent, most necessary writers under the imprint […]
Passings: Zev Birger, Lilian Jackson Braun, and Harriette Dorsen
Chairman of the Jerusalem Book Fair Zev Birger died Monday morning after being struck by a motorcycle while crossing the street in Jersualem on Saturday, May 28. His funeral will take place Tuesday. Mystery author Lilian Jackson Braun, 97, died Saturday in a hospice facility. Her longtime editor Natalee Rosenstein at Berkley comments: “She ultimately created a whole new chapter in the American Mystery, and our wonderful working relationship spanned more than two decades. But most of all, it is Lilian the person I will remember–a strong, dedicated, feisty woman who would always speak her mind and not be intimidated […]
People, Etc.
At Random House, Milena Alberti has been named vp and director of corporate development and strategy for the entire compay, while Ranjana Wingender has been promoted to vp business development for the Crown Publishing Group, a new divisional position. Josephine Hart, the poetry promoter and bestselling author of six novels including DAMAGE and THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE, died Thursday of a rare form of ovarian cancer. She was 67. Guardian Obit Wayne Greenhaw, the journalist and author of 22 novels, died May 31 following complications from open-heart surgery at the University of Alabama-Birmingham hospital. He was 71. His most recent […]