Sarah Grimm has joined Crown as publicist, working on the Crown, Hogarth, Broadway, and Tim Duggan Books imprints. Previously she was an associate publicist at Putnam. Printz Award winner and two-time National Book Award finalist Gene Luen Yang has been named the new as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He says in the announcement, “I’m thrilled and humbled…. Reading breaks down the walls that divide us. By reading, we get to know people outside of our own communities. We gain knowledge others don’t expect us to have. We discover new and surprising passions. Reading is critical to our growth, both […]
Personnel
Some Pre-Holiday Job Cuts In A Penguin Random House Group
Just before the holidays Penguin Random House quietly laid off an unspecified number of people in the umbrella group comprising PRH Audio, Fodor’s Travel, and Living Language. Division spokesperson Katie Punia confirmed in answer to our query that “a number of positions are being eliminated,” but said she was “not able to comment further” on the layoffs. One source indicated the eliminated positions were largely on the print side, possibly numbering around 15 jobs.
People, Etc.
Former BEA director of education Mark Dressler died December 23 from cancer. Dressler also programmed sessions for the Frankfurt Book Fair, and was co-owner of a wine shop in his home of Traverse City, MI. USA Today named Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins as their “author of the year.” They write: “Before 2015, no one had heard of Hawkins, 43, who previously wrote chick lit under the pseudonym Amy Silver. Then Train hurtled into bookstores on Jan. 13 and immediately clicked with readers desperate for the next Gone Girl.” Riverhead has sold over 4 million units in the US. But it […]
People, Etc.
Amistad Press founder Charles F. Harris, 81, died December 16. Harris began his career at Doubleday in the 1950s and also worked at Random House and Howard University Press before founding Amistad in 1986, which he sold to HarperCollins in 1999 (and stayed with until 2003.) The NYT covers the growth in personalized children’s books, from UK-based Lost My Name to Sourcebooks‘ Put Me In the Story program and others. But the paper may be a little off-base in dismissing the impact. While 2 percent growth in print units is hailed as a renaissance, adding a percent or two to children’s […]
People, Etc.
Christopher Richards will join Penguin Press on January 11 as associate editor. Previously he was an associate editor at FSG. At Penguin Random House, Andrew Rein is promoted to sales director, mass merchandise national accounts. Bloomsbury has agreed to acquire some family law publishing properties from Nexis Lexis and Jordan Publishing that are being spun off as a condition for regulatory approval of RELX (Reed Elsevier)’s purchase of Jordan. Bloomsbury is paying £1.4m minus deferred income. At the same time, Bloomsbury says trading conditions have been “good…in broad terms” but sales for the year remain dependent on final holiday results. We will […]
Briefs: Foer’s Next Novel, Now From FSG; and More
Jonathan Safran Foer‘s first novel in 11 years, HERE I AM, will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in September (Hamish Hamilton will publish the UK edition on September 29.) The NYT reports the novel, which FSG acquired as part of a three-book deal (which also includes another novel and a work of nonfiction), “unfolds over a single month in present-day Washington, as a Jewish family with three sons falls apart after the parents’ marriage falters. While the family implodes, relatives from Israel are visiting for the bar mitzvah of one of the sons. The drama unfolds as a […]