Ashley Collom is joining Thompson Literary Agency as literary agent January 7. She was previously an agent and the head assistant at DeFiore and Company. Brian Garfield, 79, screenwriter and author of more than 70 books, died on December 29. Garfield’s book nonfiction book The Thousand-Mile War was a Pulitzer finalist, and his book Hopscotch won an Edgar. Bookselling NYC blog Bowery Boogie reports that McNally Jackson will not be moving from its original Prince Street location after all. The site initially reported last October that the store would be moving due to a rent increase, and at the time the […]
Bookstores
Briefs
At Lerner Publishing Group, Rachel Zugschwert has been promoted to vp, marketing, and Greg Hunter to editorial director, Graphic Universe, both effective January 1, 2019. Forthcoming Zadie Smith‘s first short story collection GRAND UNION will be published by Penguin Press in fall 2019, and in the UK by Hamish Hamilton on October 3, 2019. It will contain ten new stories, as well as 10 more of “her very best, drawn from two decades of remarkable short fiction.” Initiatives Boston creative writing center GrubStreet has been selected by the city to open a new “civic-cultural space” on the first and second floors of Fifty […]
PRH Labs Rolls Out Retail Partnership with West Elm, Promises More for 2019
Penguin Random House has publicized another one of their retail-focused experiments: Creating customized sets of books for display and sales in a pilot group of West Elm stores, pairing books in categories including art, design, and cooking with the retailer’s products. The project began in the summer, and they are calling attention to a holiday Pop-Up at the West Elm on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (on Broadway, between 62nd and 63, right near the PRH headquarters), which also includes gift, music, and children’s books. In the year ahead that “localized assortment program” will roll out to “a broader set of West Elm […]
People, Etc.
Penguin Random House chief human resources officer Frank Steinert will leave the company after the first quarter in 2019. CEO Markus Dohle writes that Steinert “contributed passionately and immensely to our company by improving and strengthening our services for the most central part of our business: our employees.” Paige McInerney is promoted to the new position of evp, director of human resources for Penguin Random House US, reporting to Madeline McIntosh, and will join the US board. She has been with the company since 1991, when she started to Putnam Berkley. Dohle writes that he “will directly oversee the most […]
People, Etc.
Marian Wood, vice president and publisher of Marian Wood Books, will retire at the end of the year. She has been with Putnam since 1999. Ivan Held president of Putnam, Berkley, and Dutton wrote in a memo to staff, “While her list of writers is a tribute to her acumen as an editor, each of her books has received the skill and passion a good book deserves. As she has been known to say, ‘There is no reason to publish a book you don’t love. If you take that path, you do damage to the house, to the writer, and […]
Dropped Amazon Books Locations Raise Questions
As Amazon’s universe of experiments with physical locations expands to cashierless Amazon Go outlets and rather focusless Amazon 4-Star stores, there are signs of at least a pause in the rollout of Amazon Books stores. It was recently reported that Amazon had passed on developing a Boise, ID location that was to have been their 19th books store. Adding to that, others noticed that a Books store in Atlanta’s Buckhead, reported in November 2017, has not come to pass either. Additionally, the company itself was listing an Amazon Books location “coming soon” in Lone Tree, CO that became a 4-Star […]