Caldecott winner for Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, Simms Taback, 79, died on Christmas day. SLJ Co-founder of the Moby Dickens Bookshop Arthur J. Bachrach died on December 19.
Personnel
People: Napack to Depart Macmillan for “New Business Opportunities”
President of Macmillan Brian Napack will be departing the company “in the weeks to come” after five years in order to “pursue new opportunities”. (Napack told us those plans will be made public at a later date.) According to a staff memo circulated earlier this week, Napack will stay with Macmillan through the end of the year full-time and “work as needed beyond that to ensure a smooth transition,” which he and ceo John Sargent are in the process of preparing. “This will be a big adjustment for all of us and a particularly sad one for me,” Sargent said […]
People, Etc.
Bonnier will move operations for children’s illustrated reference publisher Weldon Owen from Sydney, Australia to London early in 2012 as part of its consolidation with Hot Key Books, whose managing director Sarah Odedina will also oversee Weldon Owen. Six or seven new staffers will join the merged company on the editorial, production and design side; rights staffers are already based in London. Bonnier ceo Richard Johnson explained in a statement that the move owed to “a significant part of Weldon Owen’s market being in Europe and with the high Australian dollar to the US dollar we feel that a move […]
People: BN’s Astarita To Lead Rodale Digital Team
Anthony Astarita will join Rodale as svp, general manager for digital and brand development on January 3, according to the NYT. Astarita has been vp, general manager for e-commerce and digital products at Barnes & Noble for the past 3 years (helping to develop and market the Nook line of digital products) and joined the company in 1998. Rodale ceo and chairwoman Maria Rodale said in a statement that Astarita brought “a wealth of digital expertise and notable credibility to the ambitious digital efforts Rodale has set for 2012 and beyond. He’s poised to expand our global digital business to […]
People, Etc.
Author Christopher Hitchens, 62, lost his battle with esophageal cancer, dying on Thursday. Vanity Fair writes, “May his 62 years of living, well, so livingly console the many of us who will miss him dearly.” Hitchens’ UK publisher Atlantic Books has said they will release his already-planned final book, a collection of essays called MORTALITY, in January according to the Guardian. (It’s currently listed for sale in April online.) His US publisher Twelve also has the book in process, though has not announced a publication plan yet. Publisher Cary Goldstein says, “What’s paramount is to publish an enduring work that’s […]
People, Etc.
Sue Ostfield will join Milkweed Editions as sales and marketing director on February 1. Most recently she has been director of national accounts at Publishers Group West. Former Zondervan associate publisher Angela Scheff has an “exclusive relationship to acquire and develop Christian non-fiction titles” for Thomas Nelson as a freelancer. (Nelson and Zondervan will soon be under the same HarperCollins corporate umbrella.) She will focus primarily on the spiritual growth category. Granta will shift distribution of their books in the US to Ingram Publisher Services in two phases. Beginning January 1, 2012, IPS will distribute a “select group of books” (including The […]