PEOPLE
Todd McGarity has been named VP, Distribution Sales & Services at Hachette Book Group USA, replacing Chris Hamley, who held the position for less than a year. McGarity was most recently Director of Client Development at Random House. He will report to COO Ken Michaels.With the merging of Oxmoor House into Time Inc. Home Entertainment, VP Publisher Brian Carnahan has left the company and is consulting on on- and offline direct response, publishing, and business development. He may be reached at BrianMCarnahan [at] gmail.com.
Jack Hoeft has been named Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Copyright Clearance Center.
Chris Navratil has been named Publisher of Perseus’s Running Press, succeeding Jon Anderson, who left earlier in the year to become EVP and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division. Navratil was most recently Publisher of Accord Publishing.
VP Editorial Director Diane Gedymin (dianegedymin1 [at] aol.com) and consultant Sheryl Stebbins (sherylstebbins [at] nyc.rr.com) have both left Author Solutions.
Anja Schmidt has been named to the newly created position of Publisher of Kyle Cathie’s US imprint, Kyle Books. She was most recently Executive Editor at DK.
National Geographic laid off several people, including Director of Travel Publishing Symmie Newhouse and Publisher Kevin Mulroy. Mulroy has started Potomac Media, a content development and packaging company, and may be reached at kevinjmulroy [at] gmail.com.
Paul Harrington, National Accounts manager at Continuum, is leaving the company. He may be reached at paul_harrington1 [at] yahoo.com.
Peter Brantley is joining the Internet Archive as Director. He will direct efforts and help coordinate with partners in building an open library and distributed publishing system. He was previously Director of the Digital Library.
Increasing movement at literary agencies: Eric Simonoff has left Janklow & Nesbit to join William Morris. Rebecca Gradinger has also left and launched Finchley Road Literary….Jenny Bent has left Trident Media Group to form The Bent Agency….Stacia Decker and Danielle Chiotti have joined Firebrand Literary as agents. Decker was an editor at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Chiotti was a senior editor at Kensington….Molly Jong-Fast has left the David Vigliano Agency after two months….Meanwhile, following recent departures at the Sandra Dijkstra Agency, Andrea Cavallaro has been hired as Sub Rights Director. She worked at both Random House and HMH….Finally, Rob Weisbach crossed over and announced that he is starting a “new generation management company,” Rob Weisbach Creative Management, designed to “re-conceive the traditional literary agency as a cross-training development company.” He was most recently Publisher at Weinstein Books.
Thomas Nelson CEO Michael Hyatt announced that Mark Schoenwald has been promoted to President and COO, reporting to Hyatt, and will be responsible for both sales and publishing. EVP and Chief Publishing Officer Tami Heim is leaving the company. For the rest of the changes, which Hyatt reported on his blog, visit http://michaelhyatt.com/2009/03/changes-in-my-leadership-team.html.
Debra Lande has been appointed Publisher of Scholastic’s Klutz. She was Direct of Product Innovation at Chronicle.
Daniel Ehrenhaft has joined Sourcebooks as a middle grade and YA acquisitions editor in the company’s NY offices. He was with Alloy Entertainment. And Lyron Bennett has left Sourcebooks, where he was the Acquiring Editor for Jabberwocky.
Novelist and Princeton philosophy professor Kwame Anthony Appiah has been named President of the PEN American Center. He succeeds Francine Prose.
Caroline Sutton has been named EIC of Penguin’s Hudson Street Press, effective May 4. She was an Executive Editor at Collins. Nick Trautwein will join The Penguin Press as Editor. He was at Bloomsbury.
Beth Davey, most recently VP Publicity at Rodale, has opened Beth Davey Media Management and may be reached at beth [at] gillilandclan.com or (203) 618-9877.
Jonathan Merkh has joined Howard Books as Publisher, reporting to EVP and Publisher of Touchstone/Fireside Mark Gompertz. Merkh was at the William Morris Agency briefly and has also worked at Guideposts and as Publisher of Thomas Nelson division Nelson Books.
Scholastic UK Group MD Kate Wilson’s departure was followed almost immediately by the announcement that she will join Headline in the new position of CEO while Martin Neild’s myriad responsibilities are reorganized.
Bonnier (UK and US) Publishing CEO Des Higgins, who was based in the UK, is leaving the company. CFO Richard Johnson will serve as interim CEO.
Following a string of sales department departures, Director of Special Sales at NBN Marie Hergenroeder has left the company and may be reached at m_hergenroeder [at] hotmail.com.
PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES
Stephen M. Smith has been appointed EVP and COO of John Wiley, effective in May.
As part of the reorganization at National Geographic (see above), Barbara Brownell Grogan was named VP and Editor-in-Chief for adult books.
Cathleen Brady has been named Director of Children’s Marketing and Publicity at Chronicle. She was Senior Children’s Publicity Manager. Holly Smith moves up to Associate Director of Trade and Mass Market Sales. Kimberly Anderson has been named Executive Director of Domestic Sales.
Alexandra Cooper has been promoted to Senior Editor, S&S Children’s.
Laura Stickney has been promoted to editor at the Penguin Press. Stickney joined Penguin in 2006 from Oxford University Press.
At Crown, Courtney Greenhalgh has been promoted to Publicity Manager and Emily Lavelle has been promoted to Associate Publicist.
DULY NOTED
FiledBy, Inc., which was cofounded by former Ingram executive Peter Clifton and publishing industry strategist Mike Shatzkin, announced the beta launch of its new site filedbyauthor, “the first large-scale author-centric promotional platform to provide every author that has been published in the U.S. or Canada a free, hosted, e-commerce–enabled web page ready to be claimed and enhanced.”
In addition to its Afternoon Bulletin for subscribers, The Bookseller has launched three new free newsletters: a daily e-mail newsletter, Morning Briefing; a weekly jobs e-mail; and a weekly Kirkus Reviews (The Bookseller’s U.S. sister publication) newsletter. To subscribe, click here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The NEA’s Big Read takes place in NYC April 1–30. The Mercantile Library and other cultural organizations will celebrate Washington Square by Henry James. For more info, visit www.mercantilelibrary.org/events/bigread/index.php and www.neabigread.org.
The Women’s National Book Association, New York Chapter, will hold a panel called “Food Books for Every Book Lover’s Palate” on Wednesday, April 15, from 6:30 to 8 PM, at the Jefferson Market branch of the New York Public Library (425 Avenue of the Americas). Panelists include Publishers Weekly Senior Editor Lynn Andriani, novelist Lara Vapnyar, Oronzo Editions Publisher Polly Franchini, and others. To RSVP to the free event, e-mail programs [at] wnba-nyc.org.
This year’s PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature will run from April 27 to May 3. Its theme is Evolution/Revolution. The event will bring together more than 160 writers from 40 countries for 60 events. Participating authors include Edwidge Danticat, Neil Gaiman, Nam Le, Walter Mosley, Salman Rushdie, and many others.
The Children’s Book Council’s Children’s Book Week takes place May 11–17, including the Children’s Choice Book Awards on May 12.
