A three-alarm fire claimed Portland, OR’s rare/used Great Northwest Bookstore over the weekend. The 120-year-old building held more than 100,000 books. Owner Phil Wikelund said, “It was my whole life, in terms of what I was doing,” adding, “I will move on some way. … I’m considering this my sign that I need to retire.” No one was injured in the blaze.Oregonian As of April 30, Barnes & Noble has a new free shipping offer for its loyalty program members. They will give “unlimited free shipping” for delivery in three business days or less for all “ship-to-home” orders placed in […]
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People, Awards, Etc.
At Simon & Schuster Children’s Alexandra Penfold has been promoted to editor, and Julia Maguire, Navah Wolfe and Lydia Frost have all moved up to assistant editor, while Kimberly Boyer is now assistant editor of Little Simon and Jessica Echeverria is assistant editor at Simon Spotlight. In other promotions, Catharine Sotzing is now associate marketing manager, education & library; Michael McCartney and Nick Sciacca both moved up to senior designer; and Cara Petrus was promoted to associate art director. Naomi Benaron‘s RUNNING THE RIFT won $25,000 Bellwether Prize for Fiction, “the largest monetary prize for unpublished fiction in North America,” […]
People, Etc.
Dan Ehrenhaft has joined Harper Children’s fiction team as director of intellectual property development, developing and commissioning original projects primarily for the teen and tween market in both print as well as emerging digital formats. He was a senior editor at Sourcebooks, where he launched their teen imprint Sourcebooks Fire and acquired for Jabberwocky. Mary Anne Thompson Associates has been appointed the US literary scout for Croatian publisher Znanje. The ABA membership ratified the nominated officers and board members. Michael Tucker and Becky Anderson will serve second one-year terms as president and vce president, respectively. Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books […]
Bush In Washington Post, AP, and NYT Review
The pre-pub Laura Bush coverage continues. The Washington Post bought a copy locally, and shares more samples of the book than yesterday’s NYT report. “There is some startling stuff in here, perhaps more startling to me, who spent much of my time as a reporter covering Bush and as a writer researching her biography, searching for a shard or two of information that might reveal more about this intensely reticent and unassuming woman…. And there are some pointed choices and some unflinching honesty.” What isn’t in there? “In 432 pages, there are three brief mentions of Barack Obama.” The AP […]
People, etc.
Lara Lea Allen is joining Barer Literary as foreign rights director. She was sssociate director of foreign rights at Trident Media Group. Barer Literary’s UK rights will continue to be handled by Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein. Marissa Walsh has joined FinePrint Literary Management as a literary agent, focusing on children’s picture books, middle-grade and YA, along with pop culture, humor, narrative non-fiction, and memoir. Most recently she was an editor at Delacorte Press/Random House Children’s Books for seven years. Scott Turow was formally elected president of the Authors Guild, taking over from Roy Blount, who served for four years. […]
NYT Breaks Laura Bush Embargo
Once again, the NYT has “obtained” (which doesn’t sound like “purchased”) a pre-embargo copy of Laura Bush’s memoir SPOKEN FROM THE HEART, in advance of the book’s May 4 publication. (Too bad it’s not an iPhone protoype, or Scribner would have a shot at getting it back.) While the paper’s story is attracting reasonable interest, we got a lot more Twitter-play yesterday by focusing on the question raised at Amazon’s Omnivoracious. They noted that their “fascination with the cover for Laura Bush’s upcoming memoir…touched a nerve with a few readers and emailers.” The big question: “I can’t decide if it’s […]