Jordan Fenn has joined McClelland & Stewart as publisher of a joint Fenn/McClelland & Stewart imprint, which will focus on hockey books. The first title will be the 2011 NHL Stanley Cup Championship book scheduled for this June, with additional new titles are scheduled for this fall and next year. For the past 15 years Fenn was publisher of Fenn Publishing Company, which shut down in the wake of its parent company HB Fenn’s bankruptcy earlier this year. Both the NYT and AP offer extensive obits on Owen Laster, who died yesterday of cancer. In a statement WME literary department head […]
Authors
People, Awards, Etc.
Former Executive Vice President and Worldwide Head of Literary Operations for William Morris Agency Owen Laster, 72, died this morning after a short illness. Laster represented a distinguished and diverse roster of bestselling and literary authors, ranging from Ralph Ellison, Chaim Potok, Robert Penn Warren, Gay Talese, Edward Albee, and Gore Vidal, to James Michener, Dominic Dunne, Susan Isaacs, Andrew Grove, William Diehl, and Judith McNaught. A New Jersey native, Laster graduated from Syracuse University, and after serving in the Army worked at William Morris for over forty years. Laura Nolan has joined Paradigm as a literary agent and will […]
People, Authors, Etc.
Knopf publisher Sonny Mehta will receive the London Book Fair’s Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing. Nancy Planitzer is joining Greater Talent Network as an account executive as part of their Publishers Speakers Bureaus division (which works with both SImon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group). She was formerly an account coordinator with the Macmillan Speakers Bureau. Franklin & Siegal has been appointed literary scout for China Citic Press in Beijing. Michael Chabon and his wife Ayelet Waldman are co-writing and executive producing a drama for HBO, currently called Hobgoblin, about “a motley group of con-men and magicians who use […]
Fleetwood Mac Album Producer Sues HarperCollins For Breach of Contract
Ken Caillat is best known in the music business as the man who produced Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours, one of the best-selling rock records of all time. That credential in turn garnered him a $555,000 advance from HarperCollins’ It Books imprint to write Starting Rumours, an oral history of the making of that record, which the publisher won at auction from Caillat’s agent Peter McGuigan of Foundry Media. But last month, Caillat filed suit against the publisher in Ventura County Superior Court alleging that he was rightfully owed his entire advance, and that HarperCollins had breached their contract by […]
People, Etc.
Kelle Ruden will move over to agent director for the Random House Speakers Bureau, starting March 14. She will work across the Random House imprints to support the current roster of author speakers and expand the program. Book critic and social-media consultant Bethanne Patrick is joining Shelf Awareness as editor of their forthcoming consumer publication. Guy LeCharles Gonzalez has joined Media Source Inc. as Director, Content & Digital Product Development, overseeing Library Journal, School Library Journal, and The Horn Book, starting today. Previously he was Director, Programming & Business Development for Digital Book World. Elaine McQuade has been appointed Head […]
Legal Briefs: BN Poison Pill Measure Upheld; Book Review Libel Case Dimissed; HB Fenn Bankruptcy Proceedings; and More
A Delaware Appeals Court has refreshed our collective memory on last year’s protracted proxy fight between Barnes & Noble and billionaire Ron Burkle thanks to its ruling yesterday that the poison pill measure, which limits stockholders to 20 percent or less of total company stock, should still be allowed to stand. AP The libel case author Karin Calvo-Goller brought against NYU Law School professor Joseph H.H. Weiler for publishing a negative review of her book has been dismissed by a French court, which said “the review expressed a scientific opinion of the book and did not go beyond the kind […]