Longtime Barnes & Noble svp, corporate communications Mary Ellen Keating is leaving the company after 21 years “now that the company has found a new owner.” She writes in a farewell letter to booksellers, “I want to wish our new owners, Elliott Advisors, the best of success in continuing our quest, and enhancing our prospects for future growth.” Keating is “rooting for James Daunt, our new leader. He brings much experience and considerable success to his new position, and he is committed to the future of this great company.” Looking back, she observes, “Being able to participate in a culture […]
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Edmund White will receive the National Book Foundation’s 2019 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Filmmaker John Waters will present the award at the National Book Awards ceremony on November 20.White’s best known work include A Boy’s Own Story and The Beautiful Room. NBF executive director Lisa Lucas said in a statement. “It’s only when you’re able to look back at a body of work that one is able to see a career like Edmund White’s for what it is: revolutionary and vital, making legible for scores of readers the people, moments and history that would come to define […]
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Allison Carroll has joined Audible Originals as executive editor for romance. She was previously editor at Harlequin. Molly Fletcher has been promoted to digital marketing specialist at Sourcebooks. Ruth Reichl remembers her editor Susan Kamil in the NYT, and Michelle Willens remembers her friend James Atlas in the LAT. Bookselling San Francisco’s Green Apple Books is buying Browser Books on Fillmore Street as of October 1. The store will keep its name and its staff.
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Cindy Uh has joined CAA as agent. Previously, she worked at Thompson Literary Agency. CEO of BookPeople in Austin, TX Elizabeth Jordan will step down from that position, to serve as general manager of author Jenny Lawson’s forthcoming store in San Antonio, Nowhere Bookshop. Associate publisher, Penguin Children’s Jocelyn Schmidt has been promoted to executive vice president. Follett has a formal press release on the expanded responsibilities for evp and overall global general manager Amandeep (Aman) Kochar, who they said in June would take over the Baker & Taylor public library business when David Cully retired at the end of […]
Random House Publisher Susan Kamil Dies
Random House Publishing Group president and publisher Gina Centrello announced to staff Monday morning that Random House publisher Susan Kamil, 69, died on Sunday “from a sudden illness…after complications from lung cancer.” Centrello wrote: “Her loss is shattering in so many ways. Susan was a brilliant editor, who guided her beloved authors through the creative process with the greatest insight, energy, and care. As a gifted publisher for the Random House lists, her leadership and generosity of spirit has had a profound and far-reaching impact. Above all, she was a deeply committed, endlessly supportive colleague to all of us—our unwavering, […]
People: NBF to Honor Teicher, and More
American Booksellers Association ceo Oren Teicher, who is retiring at the end of the year, will be honored with the National Book Foundation’s Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. Author and bookseller Ann Patchett will present the award at the National Book Awards ceremony on November 20. Marleen Reimer has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as subsidiary rights manager for general interest books. She was formerly senior scout at Maria B. Campbell Associates. Laura Zats and Erik Hane have launched Headwater Literary Management, a new agency based in Minneapolis. Both were previously at Red Sofa Literary. At […]