PEOPLE
Beth Davey has gone to Rodale as VP Director of Public Relations. She was at Inkwell Management and before that, at Little, Brown. Andrew Malkin has left Ingram International to return to NY and Rodale, where he will be VP, Trade Book Sales, working closely with Holtzbrinck as their distribution client. And, Leigh Haber takes on a new imprint, Modern Times.
Also in sales, Stacey Ashton has gone to Reader’s Digest as VP of Sales & Marketing working for Harold Clarke. She had run the New York office of MQ Publications. Jon Ackerman has been named National Accounts Manager for Adams Media. He was VP of Sales at Candlewick. . . . Mary Beth Thomas will be joining HarperCollins in the position of VP, Director of Client Services reporting to Josh Marwell, and overseeing the day-to-day sales relationship with distribution clients. She had been at S&S. PW reports that Stephanie Fierman, SVP of Sales & Marketing at DC Comics, has left the company. She had been at Zagat previously.
Tim McGuire, gone to Norton, heading its production and manufacturing operations. Most recently he has consulted, and was previously VP of Production & Manufacturing at S&S.
Melanie Fleishman has taken a new position at Symphony Space as Business Development Manager, working with the Selected Shorts Series. Most recently she managed 192 Books.
Kendra Poster is leaving FSG after fifteen “wonderful years,” to join Workman Publishing as Director of Foreign Rights, reporting to Director of International Publishing, Kristina Peterson.
Colleen Lindsay has been hired at Abrams (HNA Publishing) as Director of Marketing Operations. She was briefly at Soho Press as Publicity Director; prior to that she ran her own consultancy (Independent Marketing Consultancy). Maggie Kneip is leaving Abrams and will be available for consulting (mkneip@optonline.net, 917.846.4010).
David Arcara has left Random House Custom Media to become General Manager of Imaginova Corp., which owns numerous websites including space.com.
Peter Alfini has been hired as Director of Sales at Sourcebooks. He was the President of Dogs in Hats Children’s Publishing. Tom Galvin joins the company as a National Accounts Manager for Borders. He was at HCI, and Marty Wronkiewicz has been hired as National Accounts Manager in the mass market and gift segment. She was at Avalanche.
The Trident Media Group has hired veteran book publisher Dan Harvey to the newly created spot of Director of Marketing. Harvey had most recently been SVP and Publishing Director of the Putnam Publishing Group. Meanwhile, at Penguin, Laureen Rowland has resigned as Publisher of Hudson Street Press, and Luke Dempsey has been named Editor-in-Chief. He comes from Crown where he was Senior Editor. And Mitch Hoffman has left Dutton to move to Warner Books as an Executive Editor. Senior Editor Ben Sevier who had just moved to Touchstone Fireside from St. Martin’s will take his place. Moving to Plume as Senior Editor is Cherise Davis who was also at T/F. Meanwhile, Sulay Hernandez who came from Kensington is now an Editor at T/F.
The Sobol Awards disappeared, and with it several positions, including those held by Kate Travers (katemtravers@ gmail.com) and Brigitte Weeks (brigittew@ aol.com). Sue Pollock had left earlier and may be reached at pollocksue@aol.com.
HarperCollins announced the closing of its Regan office in LA as of March 1 and an interim logo, HC, will appear on all books published through summer ‘07. Cal Morgan and several senior members of the LA office including Executve ME/Senior Editor (and his wife) Cassie Jones; Marketing Director Gregg Sullivan and Senior AD Richard Ljoenes, return to the HC NY office. Suzanne Wickham stays on as Publicity Director based in LA. Maureen O’Neal has left the company.
Jerome Kramer has left the Book Standard where he was MD of VNU’s now Nielsen’s US Literary Group (jerome_kramer@mac.com).
Bethanne Patrick, Editor of Books Channel was laid-off from AOL, and is now contributing editor at PW while looking for a full time position. She may be reached at TheReadingWriter@aol.com.
Don Linn has left Consortium and may be reached at 651.468.9038 or don@donaldlinn.com.
Mark Fortier has left Goldberg McDuffie to launch Fortier Public Relations which will specialize in business authors. He can be reached at mark@fortier.com.
Tracy Brown has left his association with Wendy Sherman to form his own agency (tracy@brownlit.com).
Paula Duffy has announced that she will leave University of Chicago Press – where she is Director overseeing books, journals and distribution – at the end of this academic year. She has been at the Press since 2000 and was previously Publisher of Free Press. A formal search for a new director will commence in early 2007.
Brooke O’Donnell has been named Publishing Director of Trafalgar Square
Publishing (TSP). She will work with TSP publishers to develop their U.S. lists and will coordinate sales strategies with IPG staff. Jeff Palicki has joined IPG from Sourcebooks, as Trade Sales Manager. Meanwhile, Oren Silverstein has been named Business Development Executive with Getty Images, working on the publishing end, with S&S, Norton, and B&N as some of his accounts. He had been at Proe & Proe until Trafalgar Square’s sale to IPG. He may be reached at OSilver@optonline.net. At Scholastic‘s trade publishing division, Jessica Schein joins the company as Senior Marketing Manager for paperbacks and Cartwheel. She came from S&S Children’s. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Law, Associate Publisher of S&S Children’s, will leave the company at the end of March “to pursue other opportunities in publishing,” but will continue to serve as a consultant on “a number of her on-going projects.” Rubin Pfeffer will take over day-to-day responsibility for the imprint until a successor is named.
Beau Friedlander and Constance Creed are the most recent departures from Chelsea Green.
Ingram Library Services announced the appointment of Joseph P. Reynolds as VP General Manager of the company. Reynolds, who reports to Peter Clifton, was most recently President of J.P. Reynolds & Assocs. Chooseco, publishers of Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA), announced the appointment of Jason Geller to the position of National Sales Director. Geller comes from America’s Test Kitchen where he led the book division for the past five years.
Michael Burkin has gone to Mochila as Director of New Business Development.
PROMOTIONS
At WRC Neal Goff will become President of School Publishing. In this role, he will be responsible for managing Weekly Reader and Gareth Stevens Publishing. He also assumes responsibility for World Almanac Education.
Patricia Kelly has been promoted to VP, Sales at Ten Speed where she went last year as head of Specialty, Educational and Mass Merchandise sales. She had been at NBN.
Steve Tager has assumed the role of Publisher for Abrams. He was VP Sales & Marketing.
Elizabeth Hayes has been promoted from Publicity Director at S&S to VP Director of Publicity at Scribner.
Bob Spizer has been named Group Director, Domestic Rights for HC. Michele Corallo has been promoted to Director, Domestic Rights. At Harper SanFrancisco, Associate Publisher Claudia Boutote and Editorial Director Mickey Maudlin have been promoted to VP.
Stephanie Kloss has been promoted to Director of Advertising at Knopf.
At Scholastic Taline Najarian has been promoted to Associate Director, Special Sales. She was previously National Account Manager. Caren Elias has been promoted to associate marketing manager, paperbacks.
At Little, Brown, Liz Nagle has been promoted to Senior Editor, Heather Rizzo is now Executive Publicity Director, Heather Fain has become director of publicity. Michelle Aielli is Assistant Director.
Diane Gedymin, Editorial Director at iUniverse, has been promoted to VP.
Marian Lizzi has been promoted to Editor-in-Chief at Perigee, reporting to Perigee/HP/Prentice Hall Press Publisher John Duff.
At RH Children’s, Jennifer Arena has been promoted to Executive Editor; Diane Landolf has been promoted to editor. At Ballantine, Charlotte Herscher has been promoted to Senior Editor.
At Berkley/NAL‘s Ace and Roc science fiction lines, Ginjer Buchanan has been promoted to Editor in Chief.
At Harcourt, Michelle Blankenship has been promoted to Publicity Director taking over for Jennifer Gilmore.
DULY NOTED
The Books for Better Life Awards will take place on February 26 with Meredith Vieira once again MCing. For more information, contact jpowers@msnyc.org.
Word is that Fred Ciporen is actually “quite heavily involved” in a new version of The Book Standard, which will more closely resember a U.S. version of The Bookseller. Both are owned by Nielsen. Meanwhile, more changes afoot at PW online TBA.
Congratulations to Peter Mayer and Overlook on its 35th anniversary!
IN MEMORIAM
Rodney Friedman, Founder of Rebus Publishing, died on January 1st, after a long fight with cancer.
