Dan Ambrosio has joined Da Capo Books as a senior editor. He was at Wiley for the last four years, and has worked at Vigliano Associates and Warner Books. Deborah Ritchken has joined the Marsal Lyon Literary Agency, working primarily in the areas of food, design and entertaining; pop culture; women’s issues; biography; and current events. She was with The Castiglia Agency. Random House is inviting the public to buy tickets (at $25 each, including breakfast and lunch) to an “open house” at their headquarters building in New York on November 2. The full-day event promises “access to upcoming titles before they’re […]
Personnel
People: Mo Yan Wins Nobel
The Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded Thursday morning to Chinese writer Mo Yan, with the citation praising him for his “hallucinatory realism” that “merges folk tales, history and the contemporary.” Mo, a pseudonym for Guan Moye, is one of China’s best-selling (and most pirated) authors in the country, and his work, according to the Swedish Academy, “created a world reminiscent in its complexity of those in the writings of William Faulkner and Gabriel García Márquez, at the same time finding a departure point in old Chinese literature and in oral tradition.” Mo was said to be “overjoyed and terrified” […]
People
At OverDrive, Don Fabricant has been named general manager, education and chief sales. He previously held executive posts at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Eduventures and Thomson Learning. Suzanna Bainbridge has joined Sourcebooks as editorial manager for Sourcebooks EDU. Previously she was a development editor at Cengage Learning. In addition, Sarah Henry has been hired as a marketing associate, working on Sourcebooks new digital initiatives. She was most recently an editorial assistant at McGraw-Hill. Former Books-a-Million executive Douglas Markham followed his allegations against his former employer with a lawsuit, alleging wrongful termination due to his military service. The suit, filed October 5, […]
People, Etc.
Farrin Jacobs will join Little, Brown Young Reader’s Poppy imprint as editorial director on October 15, reporting to Megan Tingley. Jacobs spent the past six years at HarperTeen, most recently as editorial director. Tom Miller has joined the Business Group at McGraw-Hill Professional as executive editor. He was formerly executive editor at Wiley. At Perseus Distribution, Judy Courtade has been promoted to the newly created role of associate director, backlist sales, effective October 15. Jessica Schmidt has been named associate director, client services. She was most recently manager of publisher relations at Audible. Additionally, Ari Brenman joins as manager, client […]
People: Digital Hires at Harper
HarperCollins has hired Adrianna Dufay and Brian Perrin, both serving as executive director, digital product development, reporting to Carrie Bloxson. They will “help conceptualize and develop new digital platforms and products for individual genres and titles,” across apps, e-books, social gaming, and video products, along with helping to harness “emerging product technology and capabilities in support of the imprints.” Dufay has been at JPMorgan Chase and AOL; she will work with Avon, William Morrow, Morrow trade paperbacks, Voyager, and HarperOne. Perrin was part of the start-up team at NBC Publishing most recently and will work with Amistad, Ecco, Harper, Harper […]
People: Hachette Realigns Sales Department
Hachette Book Group has announced a new structure for their sales force under recently-hired evp and chief marketing and sales officer Evan Schnittman that will “bring the sales and marketing functions in line with the changing book market – unifying print and digital sales, and integrating research and analytics into HBG’s overall sales strategy.” The company underscores that they are not “reducing headcount as part of the re-alignmen,” and the new structure creates some new positions to be filled shortly. In the internal announcement, Schnittman explains balancing “changes that allow us to do what we do best – create massive […]