PEOPLE
At Macmillan, Troy Williams has been appointed to the new position of VP & GM, New Ventures. Williams founded Questia Media, which he sold in 2007, and PeoplePad. Meanwhile, Dan Farley is leaving Macmillan, where he was President and Publisher of the Children’s Publishing Group, after 14 years of bicoastal commuting.
Mark Polizzotti has been named Publisher and Editor-in-Chief at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, effective November 15. He was Director of Intellectual Property and Publisher at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Met Interim Publisher Gwen Roginsky has been named Associate Publisher and General Manager.
Susan Kamil, Random House Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, announced that Ruth Reichl, author and former Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet Magazine, will join the Random House imprint of the Random House Publishing Group both as author and in the newly created position of Editor-at-Large. Reichl is writing two new works of nonfiction—a cookbook called The Tao of Ruth and a memoir of her years at Condé Nast—and a debut novel, DELICIOUS! Kamil will edit all three books.
Susan Lehman was named Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Twelve at Grand Central. Lehman was an editor at Riverhead from 2003–2004, following a brief stint at Talk Magazine. Most recently, she was Director of Communications and Strategy at the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU School of Law.
Former Rodale CEO Steve Murphy has been named CEO of Christie’s, sending the art world into a tizzy (see Arts Journal coverage). He will relocate to London. Murphy’s predecessor at Christie’s, Edward Dolman, was named Chairman.
Jeanette Limondjian has left Barnes & Noble after over 40 years and may be reached at jeanette.limondjian [at] gmail dot com. She was VP, Editor-at-Large and in new business development at Sterling. Coincidentally, her sister Hilde retired from the Metropolitan Museum of Art this summer, where she had been General Manager of the Concerts & Lectures series since 1969.
Henry Holt has hired Aaron Schlechter as a Senior Editor. He was at Overlook Press. Sarah Bowlin has been hired as an Editor. She was at Riverhead. Both report to President and Publisher Steve Rubin.
Rick Richter, former President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s, announced the launch of Ruckus Media Group, “a global family entertainment company that will specialize in creating high-definition animation apps for children.” Ruckus has over 80 original and licensed animated titles under contract, and the company has just begun releasing an app each week.
Juliet Ullman has been hired as Editor-in-Chief of a new imprint of Night Shade Books, Pugilist Press.
Little, Brown Executive Director of Publicity Heather Rizzo will leave the company on December 1 to become Publicity and Marketing Director for the house’s author Michael Connelly. Little, Brown is searching for a new publicity director.
Firebrand Technologies announced that Laura Dawson has joined the company as Content Chief and head of the Content Services group. Dawson, a consultant specializing in technology, standards, and metadata, serves as co-chair of BISG’s Identification and Rights Committees. She replaces Daniel Lee, who left Firebrand to become Managing Editor at NYC’s Bard Graduate Center.
NYU Press has hired Mary Beth Jarrad as Marketing and Sales Director. She was Senior Director for International Sales at Random House.
At Overlook, Tom Willshire has been named National Accounts Manager. He was VP, Sales and Marketing at Continuum. Stephanie Gorton has been named editor. She was Managing Editor at Canongate UK.
Lindy Humphreys has joined Abrams as Director, Digital Assets and Publishing Technology. She was at Wiley.
Kobo is opening a New York office, focused on publisher relations and U.S. content acquisition. Ami Greko has joined as Senior Manager, Vendor Relations, Books. She was Director of Business Development at GetGlue, and before that, was Digital Marketing Manager at Macmillan.
Mike Ferrari has been named Merchandising Director, Trade Books at Borders. He was Director of Digital Content at Barnes & Noble.
Isabel Tewes has joined HarperMedia as Managing Editor, from S&S, where she was Managing Editor for Free Press and Scribner.
Jill Schwartzman is joining Hyperion as a Senior Editor. She was a Senior Editor at Random House Trade Paperbacks.
Susan Knopf has left Parachute Press. She spent the summer writing a cookbook and has two children’s books coming out from Sterling. She may be reached at susanknopf04 [at] yahoo [dot] com.
Michael Rohrig, Director of Channel Sales at Author Solutions, has left the company.
Former Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publicist Emer Flounders has moved to S&S as a Senior Publicist.
Seth Fishman is joining The Gernert Company as a literary agent. He was most recently at Sterling Lord Literistic.
Sara Zick has joined the Little, Brown Books for Young Readers publicity group as Associate Director, a new position. She was Publicity Manager at the Penguin Young Readers Group.
PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES
DC Comics has named Robert Harras as its new Editor-in-Chief. Harras, a longtime editor at DC, also spent five years as Editor-in-Chief of rival Marvel Comics.
Dawn Davis has been promoted from Editorial Director to Publisher of Amistad and also joins Ecco as an Executive Editor, reporting to Daniel Halpern.
DK’s Tim Greco has been promoted from National Accounts Manager to Associate Director of Digital Sales.
At Macmillan, Nora Flaherty has been promoted from Director to VP, Client Publisher Services.
Christy Mirabal has been promoted to Associate Director, HarperAudio. Esther Kim has been promoted to Senior Rights Associate. Beth Ives has been promoted to Marketing Manager.
Kimberly Chocolaad has been promoted to Senior Marketing Associate at William Morrow.
At Rodale, Shannon Welch has been promoted to Senior Editor for Runner’s World and Bicycling books and will continue to acquire for the general Rodale list. Gena Smith has been promoted to Associate Editor.
Kristin Fassler, Deputy Director of Marketing at RHPG, announced that Joe Scalora has joined the department as Associate Manager. He was in the RHPG Publicity Department.
BN Classics now reports to Margot Schupf within Sterling Innovation. Betsy Beier is Editorial Director, BN Classics and Fall River. Pamela Horn will launch a new imprint called Sterling Signature, focused on heavily illustrated titles. She will continue to work on other trade titles and on proprietary puzzles and games books, now under the Main Street imprint.
Melanie Chang has been promoted to VP and Executive Director of Publicity at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
Brian Black has been named Senior Project Editor, Reference, at Oxford University Press. He was project editor there.
Touchstone (formerly known as Touchstone Fireside) VP, Publisher Stacy Creamer announced Lauren Spiegel’s promotion to Associate Editor.
DULY NOTED
Presentations from BISG’s annual meeting include those by Bowker PubTrack’s Kelly Gallagher and Kaplan’s Maureen McMahon, and are available here.
The ABPA celebrates its thirtieth anniversary this year.
As of January, HarperCollins Executive Editor Adam Bellow’s list of conservative books will formally constitute an imprint, Broadside Books, with Bellow as Editorial Director.
UPCOMING EVENTS
The 24th annual Goddard Riverside Gala takes place on October 19 at 583 Park Ave. (rather than the past venue of Tavern on the Green), and honors Clyde Anderson, Chairman, President and CEO, Books-A-Million. .
CLMP’s annual Spelling Bee takes place on Tuesday, October 26 at 7 PM at Diane von Furstenberg’s studio. Spellers include Jonathan Burnham, crown defender Ben Greenman, Nancy Franklin, and Francine Prose.
From November 7–11, the NYU Center for Publishing joins KITAB and the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair to present a four-day series of seminars. Speakers, drawn from the faculty of the Center for Publishing, will speak to book publishing executives from 22 Arab countries.
IN MEMORIAM
Literary agent Ralph Vicinanza, 60, died in his sleep on September 25 at his home in Old Brookville, NY.
A memorial service for Les Pockell takes place October 12 at 5 pm at the Proshansky Auditorium, CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue at 35th Street.
A memorial service for Elaine Koster takes place at the National Arts Club on October 27 at 4:30 p.m.
A memorial service for Larry Ashmead will be held at St. Bart’s, 325 Park Avenue, on November 9 at 4:00 PM, followed by a reception at Inside Park, the restaurant within the church.
