Amazon‘s April Spotlight Pick is Ariel Lawhon’s Code Name Helene and their featured debut is Phuc Tran’s Sigh, Gone. Also on the list are Veronica Roth’s Chosen Ones and Elizabeth Wetmore’s Valentine, both excerpted and available for download in our Buzz Books 2020 Spring/Summer sampler. The rest of the April picks: Hidden Valley Road, by Robert Kolker Conjure Women, by Afia Atakore The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, by Grady Hendrix Pretty Things, by Janelle Brown How Much of These Hills Is Gold, by C Pam Zhang Three Hours in Paris, by Cara Black Barnes & Noble’s Books of […]
Awards
People, Etc.
Allison Carney has joined Holt as assistant director of marketing. She was most recently marketing manager at Riverhead, Viking, and Penguin. Maia Sacca-Schaeffer has joined as assistant marketing manager; previously she was digital marketing & sales associate at Farrar, Straus. Kneerim & Williams agent John Butman died unexpectedly on Monday, March 23, from what appears to have been a heart attack. He was at home in Maine after a vacation with his family. The agency remembers him as, “A priceless agent, thinker, writer, and pal. He brought us his overflowing wit, intelligence, kindness, and joy, and we will miss him sorely.” […]
People, Etc.
Laura Mazer has joined Wendy Sherman Associates as a literary agent representing adult nonfiction. Previously, she was executive editor at Seal Press. Bookselling Powell’s Books announced that they have rehired some of the employees they fired earlier in the month due to strong online orders. It was widely misreported that the store has rehired over 100 people — whereas what ceo and owner Emily Powell wrote on Facebook was that “over 100” people are working at the store again. The union representing many Powell’s workers clarified to the Oregonian “that the bookstore has only recalled 49 union workers, and said […]
Whiting Award Winners Named
The 2020 Whiting Award winners were announced online Wednesday evening. The ten winners of the $50,000 prize are: Fiction Andrea Lawlor (Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, Knopf) Ling Ma (Severance, Farrar, Straus) Genevieve Sly Crane (Sorority, Scout Press) Nonfiction Jaquira Díaz (Ordinary Girls, Algonquin) Jia Tolentino (Trick Mirror, Random House) Poetry Aria Aber (Hard Damage, University of Nebraska Press) Diannely Antigua (Ugly Music, Yesyes books) Jake Skeets (Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, Milkweed Editions) Genya Turovskaya (The Breathing Body of This Thought, Black Square Editions) Drama Will Arbery (Heroes of the Fourth Turning, Plano, Evanston Salt […]
People, Etc.: Harper Also Withdraws from Rescheduled Book Expo
In line with Penguin Random House’s position to skip this year’s planned Book Expo and Book Con — even after Reed Exhibitions rescheduled the events for July — HarperCollins has also withdrawn. “In light of the current situation and the unpredictability of the coronavirus in the coming months, we’ve made the difficult decision to withdraw our participation in Book Expo and Book Con 2020. We understand the importance of connecting with booksellers, educators, and readers, and look forward to engaging with them at other opportunities.” At Flatiron Books, Kelly Gatesman has been promoted to designer; Jordan Forney to marketing associate; […]
People, Etc.
At Hachette Book Group, Dale Wilstermann has been promoted to executive director, Nashville sales; Derek Meehan to senior manager, telephone sales; Laura Fernandez to client sales manager; and Dominique Delmas to publicist at HBG Canada. Jack Dunnington has been promoted to designer at The Experiment. Amy Giuffrida and Jolene Haley have been promoted to agent apprentice at the Corvisiero Literary Agency. Friends and admirers reported online the death of publishing executive Teresa Mlawer on Saturday. Among her many positions in publishing, she became president of Lectorum Publications, the largest distributor of Spanish-language books in the US (later acquired by Scholastic), […]