Longtime Barnes & Noble employee Brenda Marsh has left her position as vp, author relations, Publishing Trends reports. She can be reached at brendasmarsh@gmail.com. Founder of Hanser Berlin Elisabeth Ruge will leave the company at the end of 2013 for what she characterized as “personal reasons.” Ruge, who founded the imprint at Carl Hanser Verlag in January 2012, will be replaced by Karsten Kredel, currently head of translated fiction at Suhrkamp Verlag. “Hanser Berlin’s lively and unique profile will no doubt be developed and strengthened by Karsten Kredel – of this I am confident – and I wish him and my colleagues […]
Awards
People: Twelve Adds An Editorial Director, As Does Knopf, and More
Following Deb Futter’s appointment as publisher of Grand Central’s Twelve imprint in April, Sean Desmond will join the line in the new position of editorial director, starting May 28. He is currently an executive editor at Crown. Futter says in the announcement, “When I became Publisher of Twelve, my first order of business was to hire a top-notch editorial director who would work with me to define the next era at Twelve. In Sean Desmond, I could not have found a more perfect fit in terms of acquisitions and vision.” Knopf announced two editorial promotions, both effective immediately. Robin Desser […]
People, Etc.
Robin Wolfson has been named to the new position of vp, Random House Speakers Bureau, assuming central leadership of the five-year-old division, which has been managed in decentralized fashion up until now, with multiple divisional directors for the company’s different publishing groups. Wolfson’s primary responsibilities are strategic oversight and business development; those divisional directors will continue to report within their groups. Pete Beatty will join Open Road on May 28 as acquisitions director, reporting to Tina Pohlman. He was senior editor at Bloomsbury Press. Beatty is taking over for Stephanie Gorton, who is leaving to pursue a creative nonfiction MFA and will continue […]
Awards and More
Benjamin Alire Saenz, 58, became the first Latino writer to win the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Prize on Saturday, for EVERYTHING BEGINS AND ENDS AT THE KENTUCKY CLUB. Published by Cinco Puntos, it’s a collection of seven loosely linked stories. After putting Charlie Lovett‘s forthcoming THE BOOKMAN’S TALE: A Novel of Obsession on their Best Books of May list last week, now Barnes & Noble has made the book their latest B&N Recommends selection. HCI’s former licensing and subsidiary rights director Christian Blonshine has been named executive vice president. Brenda Knight has moved up to publisher of both Cleis Press and Viva […]
Meyer, Percy and Hosseini Among Monthly Bookseller Picks
The ABA named Philipp Meyer’s THE SON their No. 1 pick for June. That’s three No. 1s in a row for the Spring/Summer edition of our Buzz Books 2013 sampler (following Anthony Marra and Kate Atkinson). There are 4 other Indie Next June picks that you can preview right now in Buzz Books (Bulawayo, Miller, Disclafani, and Wascom). In all, nearly half of the 28 books we first featured and previewed in February have made “best of the month” lists from major booksellers over the past three months. Download it while you still can to read excerpts of these titles […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Longtime Author Solutions ceo Kevin Weiss is leaving the company for a new position (to be announced separately next week). President of Penguin International Andrew Phillips is taking over as ceo of Author Solutions, which Penguin acquired last July. Phillips led the launch of Partridge, the Penguin Author Solutions partnership in India. Penguin chairman and ceo John Makinson said in the announcement: “This is a bitter-sweet announcement because we shall be sorry to lose Kevin, who has provided the stability and clear leadership that Author Solutions needed in the year after our acquisition. But I always recognised that Kevin would seek […]