Jenny Chen will join Ballantine Bantam Dell as a senior editor on November 16, reporting to Jennifer Hershey. She was at Crooked Lane Books.. At Hachette Nashville, Sean McGowan has joined as editor, acquiring for Center Street, Faith Words, and Worthy. India Hunter has joined as associate editor, acquiring for Faith Words and Worthy. At Brower Literary & Management, Aimee Ashcraft has been promoted to literary agent and Anna Atoria to associate subrights agent. Zoila Peña has been promoted to assistant manager of customer service for all Workman Publishing imprints. Imprints goop Press will try again, this time through Rodale Books. The magazine […]
Awards
Kirkus Prize Winners Announced
The winners of the 2020 Kirkus Prize were announced Thursday night at a virtual ceremony hosted from the Austin Central Library. Raven Leilani‘s Luster (FSG) won for fiction. (The book was featured in our Buzz Books 2020 Spring/Summer sampler.) Mychal Denzel Smith‘s Stakes Is High: Life After the American Dream (Bold Type Books) took nonfiction. The award for Young Readers’ Literature went to I Am Every Good Thing, by Derrick Barnes, illustrated by Gordon C. James (Nancy Paulsen Books).
December’s Indie Next
The ABA announced its Indie Next list for December 2020. The list includes Denise Williams’s How to Fail at Flirting, which was excerpted in our 2020 Buzz Books Romance sampler, available for free download. The full Indie Next list: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, by Katherine May A Wealth of Pigeons: A Cartoon Collection by Steve Martin, Harry Bliss (Illus.) The Burning God (The Poppy War #3), by R.F. Kuang Before the Coffee Gets Cold: A Novel, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi The Star-Crossed Sisters of Tuscany: A Novel, by Lori Nelson Spielman Big Girl, Small Town: A […]
November Picks
Reese Witherspoon‘s Book Club pick for November is Christie Tate‘s Group. Jenna Bush Hager‘s Read with Jenna selection is Susie Yang‘s White Ivy. The Costco Pennie’s Pick is Fannie Flagg‘s The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop. The PBS-NYT Now Read This pick is Elizabeth Acevedo‘s The Poet X. The Indie Next No. 1 pick for December will be Katherine May‘s Wintering. The Amazon Spotlight Pick for November is Bryan Washington‘s Memorial, excerpted and available now in our Buzz Books 2020 Fall/Winter sampler, and their Featured Debut aligns with Jenna, Susie Yang‘s White Ivy. The rest of the list features: The […]
People, Etc.
Christopher MacLehose is leaving the MacLehose Press imprint that he founded 13 years ago. Katharina Bielenberg will be promoted to publisher. Christy Ottaviano is leaving Holt Children’s, where she has worked for 28 years, to join Little, Brown Children’s on November 30. She will continue to publish there under a Christy Ottaviano Books imprint. Jessica Anderson is moving with her. Jay Pabarue has joined The New Press as marketing and publicity associate. He was previously marketing manager at Book of the Month. Randy Kessler, 50, national sales manager at Scholastic, died on October 22. He began working at Scholastic in […]
People, Etc.
Chairman emeritus of Writers House Al Zuckerman is retiring 47 years after founding the agency. “A true legend of the industry,” the agency writes, “At the beginning of his storied career, Al was a one man shop, taking business meetings in a bank lobby; he retires having overseen the growth of the company to the industry-leading agency it is today, with over twenty agents and fifty employees. At the core of his success was Al’s extraordinary understanding of storytelling, begun with his doctoral thesis on Hamlet at Yale’s famed Drama School and continuing on through his own work as a […]