Gisselda Nuñez will join HarperCollins in the new role of vp, diversity, equity, and inclusion on September 21. Nuñez will “lead and advise the company on DE&I initiatives, creating a strategy/vision that aligns with HarperCollins’s values and culture.” She was previously executive director, head of diversity strategy at Morgan Stanley. Amanda Armstrong-Frank has been promoted to the new role of director of workplace culture and diversity initiatives at Simon & Schuster. Armstrong-Frank will “advise, advocate, and act to improve workplace culture, including diverse representation at all levels,” reporting to both Jonathan Karp and the ViacomCBS office of global inclusion under […]
Distribution
People, Etc.
Jessica Regel has left Foundry Literary + Media to start her own agency, Helm Literary. Sasha White has been promoted to assistant agent at Tobias Literary Agency, seeking adult fiction, YA, political/historical non-fiction, memoirs, and world literature in translation. At the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, Kate Weiss has been promoted to programs manager. They will fill her previous role by hiring a new communication coordinator. Longtime Today Show producer Jackie Levin is leaving NBC News, Page Six reports, taking a buyout after 26 years at the network. Obituaries Pete Hamill, 85, journalist, columnist, and author of ten novels, two books of short stories, and several books of […]
Briefs
Forthcoming Former FBI agent Peter Strzok‘s COMPROMISED: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on September 8. He will “explain how the elevation by President Trump and his collaborators of Trump’s own personal interests over the interests of the country allowed Putin to succeed beyond Stalin’s wildest dreams, and how the national security implications of Putin’s triumph will persist through our next election and beyond.” Bookselling Powell’s Books has permanently closed its location in the Portland Airport. Owner Emily Powell told The Oregonian, “Closing the airport store is a sad necessity as […]
People, Etc.: Canedy to Lead S&S Imprint
Dana Canedy will become senior vice president and publisher of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint, starting July 27. She has been the administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes since 2017, and previously worked at the New York Times for 20 years. She was a lead writer and editor on the 2001 Pulitzer-winning series “How Race Is Lived in America,” and her roles at the paper including serving as special advisor to the ceo and executive editor on strategic planning, change management, and diversity and inclusion practices. Canedy tells the NYT, “The ultimate goal of the job is to champion the […]
People, Etc.
Sandy Lu has founded Book Wyrm Literary Agency, focusing on commercial fiction and nonfiction, bringing over her clients from the L. Perkins Agency, where she has been for almost 12 years. Chelene Knight has joined Transatlantic Agency as associate agent. She was previously managing editor at Room magazine and festival director for the Growing Room Literary Festival in Vancouver. Tara Gavin has joined Alcove Press and Crooked Lane Books as a senior acquisitions editor, working on book club and women’s fiction as well as select mysteries. Previously she was an executive editor at Kensington. President of Oxford University Press USA Niko Pfund took over […]
People, Etc.
Layoffs Barnes & Noble fired a number of employees at its New York headquarters who had been furloughed since March, including a number of veteran buyers. The company didn’t provide a headcount, and confirmed the news in a maddeningly passive statement: “It is with great regret that a number of employees in the corporate office have left our employment. As with so many companies, we evaluate our needs in circumstances much changed by the Covid-19 pandemic. We now have almost all of our bookstores reopened and must align our head office requirements to our store priorities. These are wonderful employees […]