People Round-Up, Mid-April 2023

PEOPLE

At Penguin Random House, Carisa Hays will be leaving her role as publicity director. Following the retirements of Subsidiary Rights VP Leigh Butler and VPHal Fessenden, Tom Dussel will lead the team in the new role of VP, director, subrights, reporting to Allison Dobson at Penguin Publishing Group. Sabila Khan will lead the foreign rights team as VP, subrights, reporting to Dussel. She will also be responsible for selling foreign rights for Viking, Penguin, Dutton, and Tarcher Perigee. Will Anderson joins WaterBrook and Multnomah as senior editor. He has worked as a freelance writer and editor and a pastor. At Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Andrew Unger has joined as business manager. He was most recently retail sales manager/digital strategy specialist at Grove Atlantic. At Random House Children’s Books, Joey Ho has been promoted to publicist.

Emma Brodie has joined Chronicle as an executive editor. She was previously at Little, Brown’s Voracious. Sonya Harris has joined Chronicle as senior sales manager for special sales. At Little, Brown’s Children, Sadie Trombetta will join as publicity manager. She was most recently publicity manager at Interlink Books. Dana Canedy will join The Guardian US as Managing Editor on April 24. She was most recently SVP and Publisher at Simon & Schuster.

At William Morrow/Avon, VP, executive editor Lucia Macro will retire on June 23.

At Baker & Taylor Publisher Services, Tim McCall has joined as trade sales director. He was most recently at TA-DA! Language Productions.

Jenny Xu joins Atria as senior editor. She was previously at HarperCollins.

At Macmillan, Kelly Collins has joined as VP, communications and community. She was previously global head of internal communications at cybersecurity firm Synk.

Drew Anderla has joined as an associate editor at Apollo Publishers.

Brianna Skelly has joined Scholastic as editorial assistant.

PROMOTIONS

At Penguin Publishing Group, Tawanna Sullivan has been promoted to senior director and will continue to sell foreign and domestic rights for Berkley. Senior associate Emilie Mills will report to Sullivan and handle F+W and select emerging markets. Ritsuko Okumura has been promoted to senior director and will sell foreign rights for Putnam, Avery, and Portfolio, reporting to Khan. Also reporting to Khan are Jillian Fata, who has been promoted to senior manager and support sales for Dutton and Tarcher Perigee, and sell rights for Zeitgeist and select emerging markets; and Julie Lubwama, who has been promoted to subrights associate. At Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, May Choy has been promoted to vp & senior director, strategy & finance. Emily Reardon has been promoted to assistant director of publicity at Knopf. Sal Ruggiero has been promoted to assistant director, foreign and subsidiary rights. Julie Ertl has been promoted to assistant publicity director at Vintage Anchor. Morgan Hamilton, Izzy Meyers, and Sarah Perrin have been promoted to assistant editor at Knopf.

At Hanover Square Press, John Glynn has been promoted to executive editor.

At Simon & Schuster, Cat Boyd and Brianna Scharfenberg have been promoted to assistant director of publicity.

Macmillan announced a number of promotions. Justin Blackman to senior manager, business systems. Rob Acosta to manager, technical support on the technology team. Andrew Arens to manager, technical customer support on the platform development team. Janel Brown to managing editor on the trade managing editorial team. Dylan Dobrenis to manager, inventory management on the supply chain team.

At Chronicle, Nora Aoyagi has been promoted to senior designer for Petit Collage.

Cecilia Lyra has been promoted to literary agent at P.S. Literary Agency.

Dawn Adams has been promoted to senior art director at Sourcebooks. Annie Berger has been promoted to executive editor. Madeleine Brown has been promoted to senior marketing associate. Michelle Mayhall has been promoted to senior book designer. Brittany Vibbert has been promoted to associate creative director, calendars & gift. John Aardema has been promoted to senior art director. Rachel Gilmer has been promoted to associate editor at sourcebooks. Jenny Lopez has been promoted to assistant editor, kids and YA. Jocelyn Travis has been promoted to assistant editor. Anna Venckus has been promoted to marketing associate. Katie Stutz has been promoted to assistant marketing manager for Bloom Books and Sourcebooks Casablanca.

At Grove Atlantic, Emily Burns has been promoted to associate editor. Rachel Gilman has been promoted to sales and marketing associate.

Alison Schwartz, a former literary agent turned startup co-founder, joined Gotham Ghostwriters as its chief operating officer.

DULY NOTED

Ulysses Press has acquired VeloPress in a deal that will bring about 80 books in the health and fitness category to the indie press. Ulysses plans to continue to add books under the Velo imprint with a goal of 12 titles for 2024.

Michael Denneny, who worked as an editor for 35 years at Macmillan, St. Martin’s Press, and Crown Publishing passed away on April 12th. He was 80. Denneny is recognized as an “LGBTQ publishing icon” as PW noted.

Rick Wolff, longtime editor and sports broadcaster, and book editor at Hachette, HMH and elsewhere, died on April 10 following a brief battle with brain cancer. He was 71.

EVENTS

April 19-23
Texas Library Association Conference
Austin, TX

April 21-23
Livre Paris
Paris, France

April 21-24
Unbound Book Festival
Columbia, MO

April 22
The Self-Publishing Conference
Leicester, UK

April 22-23
L.A. Times Festival of Books
Los Angeles, CA

April 27-May 15
Buenos Aires Book Fair
Buenos Aires, Argentina

April 27-30
Calgary Expo
Calgary, AB

April 27-30
Leipzig Book Fair
Leipzig, Germany

April 27-30
New York International Antiquarian Book Fair
New York, NY

April 28-30
Malice Domestic
Bethesda, MD

April 28-30
Newburyport Literary Festival
Newburyport, MA