Celia Lee will join Simon & Schuster Children’s as executive editor. She was most recently senior editor at Orchard Books and Cartwheel Books. Stephanie Koven has joined Blackstone Publishing as head of foreign rights. Previously, Koven was an agent at Cullen Stanley International. Nicki Richesin has joined Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency as an agent. Previously she was at Wendy Sherman Associates.
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Asanté Simons has been promoted to associate editor for William Morrow/Avon Books. Angela Messina has joined Basic Books as assistant publicity director. Most recently, she was publicity manager at Oxford University Press. In the UK, as part of the Queen’s birthday honors list, Allison & Busby co-founder Margaret Busby was named a CBE and Faber executive chair Stephen Page was awarded an OBE.
Obituaries
Lucinda Riley, 56, the bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series, died on June 11 of cancer. Jeremy Trevathan, managing director of Pan Macmillan’s adult publishing division, said, “It’s been an immense and very rare privilege to work with Lucinda. Popular fiction is often looked down on but when authors like Lucinda break through and strike an emotional chord with their readers that really is the joy of publishing. Lucinda had an enormous capacity for fun, friendship and love and I was honoured to call her a friend. I, and the whole team at Pan Mac, are so thankful to […]
Imprints
Astra Publishing House is launching an imprint dedicated to publishing illustrated books for children, to be led by Jill Davis. She was most recently executive editor at Harper Children’s. She will report to coo Ben Schrank and president Leying Jiang. Davis says, “My focus at Astra will be developing authors and illustrators from all over and helping them create unforgettable stories with sparkle, soul, and lots of surprises. The majority of my list will be illustrated books for ages 0–12, with an occasional teen title.”
Legal
A lawsuit in the UK has revealed that Neil Blair at The Blair Partnership paid his former employer Christopher Little £10 million as a settlement fee in January 2012. The payment came after Blair set up his own agency in 2011 and took over representation of JK Rowling. The filing also indicates that Blair borrowed the money for the lump sum payment from Rowling. The only previous report of the settlement was a Daily Mail account in February 2012, with a statement from statement from reputation and crisis-management firm Project Associates indicating that Rowling and Little “have reached an amicable agreement […]
Distribution
The SPCK Group, including Lion Hudson, IVP UK and SPCK, will be sold and distributed by Baker & Taylor Publisher Services in the US and Canada starting July 1.