John Hawkins, who owned and operated the literary agency John Hawkins & Associates, died November 13 at the age of 72. The cause of death was not immediately available. Hawkins joined Paul R. Reynolds Inc., established by his wife’s grandfather, in 1966, became president of the agency in 1980 and changed its name to John Hawkins & Associates in 1985. Among his current and former clients are James Clavell, Alex Haley, Gail Godwin, E. Lynn Harris, Thomas McGuane, Harry Crews and Joyce Carol Oates, who said in a statement that Hawkins “was a beloved friend to his writers, warmly sympathetic, […]
Awards
Independents Triumph At National Book Awards
The National Book Awards turned into a celebration of independence of sorts on Wednesday night, with independent publishers issuing three of the four medal winners, and a special award for service to the American literary community going to independent bookseller and former ABA president Mitchell Kaplan from Miami’s Books & Books. In a similar but different vein, the AP called the evening’s festivities “a gilded tribute to the 99 percent. Stories of resilience in the face of poverty, displacement and disappearance were awarded Wednesday night as hundreds of writers, editors, publishers and other industry officials gathered under the 70-foot ceilings of […]
Later Today
At 12:30 the National Book Foundation will webcast their teen press conference from Scholastic, where NY middle school and high school students will interview the five official candidates for the award for Young People’s Literature. And tonight at 8, the organization will webcast the National Book Award ceremonies live from their home page. Separately, the UAW rally in front of HarperCollins’ midtown office building is scheduled for 12:30 today. The union says in a press release that “a number of HarperCollins works will speak,” and they “will be joined by several elected officials” among others. Harper production editor Dale Rohrbaugh […]
People, Awards, Etc.
Molly Barton will move up to global digital director at Penguin as of December 1. She takes over from Dan Ruffino, who is returning home to Australia. At HarperCollins, Beth Silfin has been promoted to the newly created position of vp, deputy general counsel, responsible for overseeing the contracts department in working directly with literary agents on contracts and rights negotiations. As a result of the change in how the legal and contracts department is organized, vp, associate general counsel Tom Ward will leave the company after more than 15 years. In addition, Cindy DiTiberio has been promoted to senior […]
People, Etc.
Thomas LeBien will join Simon & Schuster as vp, senior editor, specializing in history and non-fiction. He was most recently at FSG, where he was publisher of the Hill & Wang and Scientific American imprints. LeBien starts at S&S on December 21 Rachel Vogel will join Mary Evans Inc. as foreign rights director and literary agent, effective November 28th, where she’ll continue to build her list of literary and upmarket fiction, narrative nonfiction and memoir. She has previously held positions at Movable Type, Lippincott Massie McQuilkin, and Maria Campbell Associates. Parhul Segal has joined NPR as digital associate editor for […]
People: Edugyan Wins Giller, and More
HALF BLOOD BLUES by Esi Edugyan (Thomas Allen) has won the 2011 Giller Prize, less than a year after Edugyan’s original publisher Key Porter Books suffered from financial difficulties that led to its bankruptcy this fall. There are currently 23,000 copies of the book in print in Canada and Thomas Allen publisher Thomas Crean told Quill & Quire “Tomorrow morning we’re going to be pushing the button again…I don’t quite know what the number is going to be, but it’s going to be upwards of 20,000.” In the UK, Sam Humphreys will join Michael Joseph as publisher at the end […]