People Round-Up, Mid-June 2015

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PEOPLE

Harold Augenbraum will step down from his position as Executive Director of the National Book Foundation in March 2016, after ten years in the role. No successor has been named yet, but a search is underway. Meanwhile, author Reynold Levy joined the Board of Directors.

Amy Brand is now Director of MIT Press, succeeding Ellen Faran, effective July 20th. Brand was most recently VP at Digtial Science, a division of the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group.

Maha Khalil is now VP, National Accounts for Perseus Books Group and Perseus Distribution with the additional responsibilities as Sales Director for Running Press. She was Director of Sales and Marketing for Skyhorse.

Karen Thomas is now Publisher of Cleis Press and Viva Editions, following the resignation of Brenda Knight. Thomas was formerly Executive Editor at Grand Central Publishing and Founding Editor of Dafina Books.

At Crown Publishing Group, Jessica Brown joined Convergent Books as Publicist/Marketer and David Hawk has joined Ten Speed Press as Senior Marketing and Publicity Manager. Brown was Publicist at Howard Books and Hawk was Senior Marketing and Publicity Manager, Food and Drink at Chronicle Books. At Puffin, Jennifer Bonnell resigned as Executive Editor after 16 years with the company. She plans to pursue freelance editorial consulting opportunities. She can be reached at jen@jenbonnell.com.

Ebony LaDelle joined Simon & Schuster as Marketing Manager. She was Marketing and Promotions Manager at Henry Holt & Company.

Sandy Smith joined Chronicle Books as Marketing Manager, Entertainment & Art. She was previously in the marketing department of Wiley.

Michael Connole will join Quarto in September as CFO. He is currently CFO of Global Radio Group.

At literary agencies, Daniel Menaker joined McCormick Literary as Affiliate Agent. He was formerly Editor at the New Yorker and Editor-in-Chief of Random House. . . John Cusick joined Folio Literary Management’s Folio Jr. as Agent. Previously he was Agent at Greenhouse Literary. . . Matthew DiGangi joined Bresnick Weil Literary Agency as Affiliate. He was previously in the contracts department of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. . . Thérèse Coen joined Madeleine Milburn Ltd. as Rights Agent and Sarah O’Halloran as Agent. Coen was Rights Executive at Ed Victor Ltd. and O’Halloran was Literary Scout at Louise Allen-Jones Associates.

Additionally at university presses, Kerry Cahill joined Johns Hopkins University Press as Sales Director of the Books Division. She succeeds Tom Lovett, who retires at the end of June. Cahill was formerly Associate Director, College Sales and Marketing at Cambridge University Press. . . Justin Race was named Director at University of Nevada Press. He was Acquisitions Editor at Rowman & Littlefield.

Lia Hunt joined Princeton Architectural Press as Sales and Marketing Director. She was VP at Folio Society. Sarah McKay joined as Program Director of the gift and stationary line, Paper+Goods. She was at the New York Times. Stephanie Leke is now Publicist. She previously worked for publicity firms The Eighth Floor and The Musmanno Group.

Mary Glenn joined Humanix Books as Publisher. She was most recently Publisher at McGraw-Hill Professional.

Margaret Coffee joined Sourcebooks as National Account Manager, Schools and Libraries. She was Sales and Marketing Director at Egmont USA. Additionally, Stephanie Graham is now Marketing Coordinator. She was Communications Assistant in the International Education office at Marquette University.

Samantha Frontera joined Triumph Books as Publicist. She was Publicist at Exclusive PR and Exact Publicity.

James Hadley Billington will step down from his position as Librarian of Congress at The Library of Congress in January 2016 after almost three decades.

Hut Landon will retire from his position as Executive Director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association at the end of the year, after 15 years in the role.

PROMOTIONS

Samantha Hagerbaumer was promoted to Senior Director, International Sales and Marketing at HarperCollins. Ecco promoted Ashley Garland to Senior Publicity Manager.

Andrea Spooner has taken on the new role of VP, Editorial Director of Picture Books at Little Brown Children’s. Meanwhile, Farrin Jacobs is now Editorial Director, Nonfiction at Little, Brown in addition to being Editorial Director at the teen imprint Poppy.

Lori De Reza was promoted to VP, Operations in Crawfordsville at Penguin Random House. Elena Hershey was promoted to Publicist at Putnam. Emily Hughes was promoted to Associate Manager, Content Development & Social Media at PRH.

At Perseus Books Group, Adam Schnitzer was promoted to the newly created position of VP, Perseus Imprint Sales Director, where he will work with the Basic Books, PublicAffairs, DaCapo, and Weinstein imprints. Andrew Gochnauer was promoted to Assistant Manager, Amazon. James Chan is now responsible for selling Perseus Distribution titles to Barnes & Noble College in addition to his previous duties of selling Perseus Books Group and Perseus Distribution titles to Books-a-Million and Hastings. Dan Gerstle was promoted to Senior Editor at Basic Books.

Laura Gates Galvin was promoted to Editorial Director at Kidsbooks, LLC.

Michael McCullough was named Interim Sales and Marketing Manager at Duke University Press, succeeding the current Director of Books Marketing Emily Young, who is retiring at the end of June.

Sourcebooks promoted Dawn Adams to Art Director of its Casablanca imprint and Adrienne Krogh to Art Director of its Landmark imprint. Meanwhile, Nichole Komasinski is now Associate Art Director and Jillian Rahn is Senior Production Designer.

Princeton Architectural Press promoted Diane Levinson to Publicity Director and Tom Cho to Managing Editor.

St. Martin’s Press promoted Justin Velella to Senior Publicist.

David Adams was promoted to Editor at Open Road Integrated Media.

DULY NOTED

Juan Felipe Herrera was named Poet Laureate, becoming the first Latino writer to receive the honor.

Gallup Press will move their global sales and distribution to Simon & Schuster in 2016. They were formerly distributed by Publishers Group West.

France was named the Guest of Honor country for the Frankfurt Book Fair 2017.