FinePrint Literary Management has hired Laura Wood and Ward Calhoun as agents and Jacqueline Murphy as in-house subsidiary rights director. Wood was most recently associate publisher of Council Oak Books, the latest step in a 20-year career in publishing. She will specialize in serious nonfiction (science and nature, business, history, religion) as well as commercial fiction with a fantastical twist and high-concept science fiction. Calhoun has been a senior editor at Hylas Publishing, and will focus on sports, humor, and pop culture books. Murphy was most recently executive audio editor at Harper Media but prior to that she was longtime […]
Personnel
People and Awards
Over the weekend Phoenix Books announced the death of company president Michael Viner, 64, on Saturday, following a battle with cancer. They note Viner was “widely credited with revolutionizing and reinventing the audiobook industry as the co-founder of Dove Audio.” At the Hugo Awards presented this weekend, Neil Gaiman won the prize for best novel for The Graveyard Book. Borders Group has named three vice presidents to lead their store operations: Mike Steele is zone vice president for the West Coast; John Melnick is zone vice president for the Northeast; Dave Marsico is zone vice president for the Midwest. The […]
People and Announcements
Rachel Berkowitz will join Crown as associate manager, foreign rights, reporting to Linda Kaplan. She replaces Derek Rodenhausen and comes from Jutta Klein Scouting. Susan Pi has joined Heyday Books in Berkeley, CA as marketing and publicity director. The Frankfurt Book Fair will desginate part of Hall 5.0 for international food and wine publishers as its Gourmet Gallery
People and Announcements
Julie Bennett is rejoining Ten Speed Press as editorial director, reporting to publisher Aaron Wehner. She previously worked for the publisher for nine, most recently as senior acquiring editor. Dawn Yanagihara also joins the company as senior editor. She worked in a number of roles at Cook’s Illustrated and then was at Weldon Owen as senior editor. At Holt, Helen Atsma has been promoted to senior editor after two years at the publisher. Adriana Dominguez has joined Full Circle Literary as an agent, based in New York and serving as the agency’s East coast representativ. Most recently she was executive […]
People and Announcements
The PEN American Center has named Steven Isenberg as executive director. For the past six years, he was a visiting professor of humanities at the University of Texas, Austin). His many previous positions include stints as publisher of New York Newsday, evp of the Los Angeles Times, and chief of staff to New York Mayor John Lindsay. Release Susannah McFarlane, former co-owner, managing direct and publisher of Hardie Grant Egmont in Australia has launched a new company, Lemonfizz Media. She will “focus on fully developing a small number of publishing projects that we are passionate about and really investing in […]
People: McMurtry's Novel Might Be His Last; Sharma-Jensen Takes Buyout; Blessing Joins Inkwell
Larry McMurtry, 73, tells the Dallas Morning News in advance of the release of his new novel RHINO RANCH later this month: “I don’t think I can write fiction any more. I think I’ve used it up over 30 novels. That’s a lot of novels.” He adds, “Most great novels are written by people between 40 and 60, or 35 and 60,” he says. “Not too many great novels are written by people over 75. Hardly any. Maybe Tolstoy.”DMN Another longtime newspaper books editor (and also NBCC board member) Geeta Sharma-Jensen at the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel is taking a buyout and […]