People Round-Up, Mid-January 2016

PEOPLE

Suzanne O’Neill will become VP, Executive Editor at Grand Central at the beginning of February. She was previously VP, Executive Editor at Crown.

Jane Manning Hyatt joined Chronicle Books as Executive Director of Sales. She was previously VP, Higher Education at Teachscape.

Laura Dew is now Creative Director at Quarto Publishing Group USA.

At literary agencies, Molly O’Neill joined Waxman Leavell Literary Agency as Agent. She was previously Head of Editorial at Storybird. . . Angela Scheff joined The Christopher Ferebee Agency as Agent. She was previously freelancing. Jana Burson has also joined The Christopher Ferebee Agency. She was previously Owner of The Burson Agency. . . Megan Reid is now Senior Scout for Adult Fiction and Nonfiction at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. She was Associate Editor at Emily Bestler Books and Atria. . . MacKenzie Fraser-Bub has left her position as Agent at Trident Media Group to become an independent Agent. . . Molly Glick is now Agent in CAA’s books department, based in New York. She was previously Agent at Foundry Literary + Media, and will bring her clients over with her. . . Barbara Berson is now Agent at The Helen Heller Agency. She was most recently a Freelance Editorial Consultant. . . Margaret Sutherland Brown is now Agent at the Emma Sweeney Agency. She was most recently at Freelance Editor. . . Kent Wolf joined The Friedrich Agency as Agent and Foreign Rights Director. He was previously at Lippincott Massie and McQuilkin.

Ben Bruton launched his own book publicity firm Ben Bruton Literary. He was previously Senior Director, Publicity at William Morrow.

Eric Shoup joined Scribd as COO. He was previously Chief Product Officer at Ancestry.com.

David DeWitt joined Little Bee Books as Designer. He was previously Designer at Scholastic.

Paola Crespo is now Marketing Coordinator at Open Road Media. She was Publicity Assistant at Penguin Random House.

Jonathan Lee joined Catapult as Senior Editor. He was Editor at A Public Space.

Paul Fisher is now Senior Marketing Director, Fiction Books for HarperCollins Christian. He was previously SVP, Marketing at THIEL Audio.

JD Wilson joined Northwestern University Press as Director of Marketing and Sales. He was previously Sales and Marketing Director at University of Alabama Press.

Nicole Pavlas joined Worthy Publishing as Director of Publicity. She was Publicist at HarperCollins Christian.

Matt Harris joined Vearsa as Head of Sales. He was Director of Business Development at LibreDigital.

PROMOTIONS

Numerous promotions were announced at Penguin Random House including, Claire Von Schilling was promoted to SVP, Corporate Communications and was also appointed to the North American Board.

Penguin announced the merger of its Berkley imprint into the unified Putnam and Dutton imprints. Putnam and Dutton President Ivan Held will take over the direction of Berkley. Berkley President Leslie Gelbman will leave the company at the end of January after working with the company for 27 years. VP, Associate Publisher Rick Nayer will also leave the company after 37 years. Berkley VP and EIC Claire Zion and VP, Publisher Raymond Garcia will now report to Held. Patty King will move into the role of VP, Director of Strategic Production Spend Management. Julie Strauss-Gabel was promoted to President and Publisher of Dutton Children’s. Berkley promoted Brent Howard to Executive Editor.

Random House promoted Susan Corcoran and Sally Marvin to SVP, Publicity and Communications. Random House Children’s promoted Kerri Benvenuto to Senior Executive Director, Licensed and Proprietary Brand Marketing and Robby Brown to Senior Marketing Manager, Licensed and Proprietary Brands. Alice Jonaitis was promoted to Executive Editor of Random House Books for Young Readers, Mary Man-Kong to Executive Editor at Random House Books for Young Readers/Golden Books and Krista Vitola to Editor of Delacorte Books for Young Readers.

Elda Rotor is now VP, Publisher of Penguin Classics. Blue Rider Press/Plume promoted Sarah Hochman to EIC, Becky Cole to Executive Editor of Plume, Kate Napolitano to Senior Editor.

Crown Publishing promoted Megan Perritt to Assistant Publicity Director of Crown Business and Crown Forum and Ayelet Gruenspecht to Assistant Marketing Director of those two imprints. Clarkson Potter Assistant Marketing Director Carly Gorga will take on the additional responsibilities of Assistant Director, Partnerships. Kevin Sweeting is now Marketing Manager at Clarkson Potter. Additionally, Christina Foxley was promoted to Assistant Director, Marketing for Archetype and Three Rivers Press in addition to her responsibilities for the Harmony imprint. Seth Morris is now Assistant Director of Ads/Promos and Kate Rados is VP, Community Development. Pam Krauss will join Avery as VP, Publisher of her imprint Pam Krauss Books and Editor-at-Large for Avery in February. Her imprint was previously part of Clarkson Potter, where she will continue to edit her long-standing authors of that imprint.

Barnes & Noble promoted Mary Amicucci to Chief Merchandising Officer.

Michelle Aielli was promoted to Associate Publisher at Hachette and Betsy Hulsebosch’s role has expanded to Marketing Director for both Hachette Books and Black Dog & Leventhal, reporting to Aielli. Little, Brown promoted Nicole Dewey to VP, Associate Publisher. She will continue to manage the imprint’s publicity department. Meghan Deans, Assistant Director of Social Media, will now report to Dewey.

Macmillan promoted Alice Baker to VP, Specialty Retail and Wholesale Sales, Jackie Wagner to Associate Director, National Specialty Retail, and Dustin Ross to Special Markets Manager, Mail Order and Internet Sales. St. Martin’s Press promoted Karlyn Hixson to Senior Marketing Manager and Jessica Preeg to Publicity Manager. Additionally, Michael Homler and Daniela Rapp were both promoted to Senior Editor. Meredith Mennitt, Holly Ingraham, and Eileen Rothschild were all promoted to Editor. Henry Holt promoted Carolyn O’Keefe to Deputy Director of Publicity and Leslie Brandon to Senior Publicity Manager. Macmillan Children’s promoted Caitlin Sweeny to Senior Digital Marketing Manager.

Erik Gilg was promoted to Group Publisher at Quarto Publishing Group USA.

HarperCollins Christian promoted Londa Alderink to VP, Marketing for Zonderkidz and Blink YA. Denise Oswald is moving over from Dey Street Books to Ecco, where she will continue as Executive Editor.

Rebecca Kaplan was promoted to Executive Editor of Adult Trade at Abrams as well as Editorial Director of Adult Trade at Abrams Image. Additionally, Kathy Lovisolo was promoted to Senior Production Manager and Morgan Amer to Sales Representative, Special Markets.

Open Road Media promoted Greta Shull to Marketing Coordinator.

Chronicle Books promoted Lindsay Sablosky to Senior Director, Production, Erin Thacker to Production Director, Formats, Beth Steiner to Production Director, Books and Sustainable Manufacturing. Additionally, Katie Lindsey was promoted to Sales Materials Coordinator, Sarah Lin Go to Publicity Coordinator, and Wendy Thorpe to Production Manager, Children’s.

Sasquatch Books Publisher Gary Luke took on the additional titles of Chairman and CEO

The Gernert Company promoted Chris Parris-Lamb and Rebecca Gardner to VP and Erika Storella to Director of Operations.

DULY NOTED

Former PGW President Susan Reich and Financial Advisor/Consultant David Lamb have formed Book Advisors LLC, which will advise publishers on mergers and acquisitions, as well as strategic planning, digital publishing, distribution, and operational issues. Reich will be based in Oakland, CA and Lamb out of the Market Partners International offices in New York.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt moved its offices to the 19^th floor of 3 Park Avenue, New York, NY. Email addresses and phone numbers will not be affected by the move.

Book Business and Publishing Executive will discontinue the regular publication of their print magazines in order to focus on their digital products and events business.