Namrata Tripathi will join Atheneum Children’s as executive editor on December 8. She has most recently been senior editor at Hyperion Children’s. Additionally, associate editor Lisa Cheng will move from Margaret K. McElderry Books to Atheneum, reporting to Tripathi.
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Amazon/Penguin Contest Returns
The e-tailer’s Breakthrough Novel Award competition will return for a second year, open to new manuscript submissions as of Groundhog’s Day, 2009, and once again they will partner with the Penguin Group. Amazon calls the first contest “enormously successful,” despite the tepid response from the marketplace to the August release of winner Bill Loehfelm’s FRESH KILLS. (Loehfelm’s book has sold approximately 4,000 copies through outlets tracked by Nielsen Bookscan.) But Penguin has acquired rights to four of the other ten finalists: Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan (Amy Einhorn Books, July 2009); The Wet Nurse’s Tale by Erica Eisdorfer (Putnam, […]
Show Director Acknowledges BEA at a "Crossroads"
In a blog post, BEA show director Lance Fensterman writes, “BEA is at a cross roads, this point is not lost on me or the BEA team, but at the crossroads I see opportunity and I believe we are aggressively working through a process to evolve the show and serve our customers and our industry ever better.” He adds, ” the current climate has accelerated our action and our customers’ desire for action.” That action includes creating “an executive steering committee to advise us on the most top level issues.” Fensterman says they are examining a number of “big issues,” […]
Meryl Streep to Play Dewey Author
A film version of Vicki Myron’s bestselling DEWEY: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World will feature Meryl Streep as the author. Producers Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey at Temple Hill Entertainment partners will make the move with New Line. (The production company is also responsible for the movie adaptation of Stephenie Meyer’s Twlight.)Variety
WH Smith Sales Slide
British-based retailer WH Smith issued a short trading update for September 1 through November, when same-store High Street sales fell 4 percent. They added: “Whilst we remain cautious about the consumer environment and anticipate competitive trading in our markets over the key Christmas period, we have planned accordingly, and the current financial year has started as we expected.” In other UK financials, sales at Canongate for calendar 2007 declined almost 4 percent, down to 7.8 million pounds from 8.1 million the year before, while pre-tax profits fell sharply to 271,000 pounds, 60 percent decline from the year before. The company’s […]
Giller to Boyden
Joseph Boyden won Canada’s Giller Prize for his second novel THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, after having been favored to win the award three years ago for his debut, THREE DAY ROAD. Juror Margaret Atwood praised the book “for its spare prose style that ranges from lyrical to brutal … and that shows us unforgettable characters and a northern landscape in a way we have never seen before.” Viking has the book scheduled for March 2009 release in the US. Mary Swan’s THE BOYS IN THE TREES had been the “overwhelming” favorite in the Guess the Giller contest, run through 30 public […]