Thursday, November 09, 2017

Publishers Lunch


Today's Meal


John Kulka has been hired as editorial director for Library of America, taking over from Geoffrey O'Brien, who will retire at the end of 2017. Currently executive editor at Basic, he has worked for Barnes & Noble, Yale University Press, and Harvard University Press, and has served on the boards of the Dalkey Archive Press and the David Charles Horn Foundation, which supports the Yale Drama Series.

Publisher Max Rudin said in the announcement, "John's broad and deep knowledge of American writing, his experience on both the publishing and bookselling sides, and his career-long dedication to quality, make him the ideal person to help guide our editorial program going forward and a valuable addition to Library of America's management team."

Additionally, LOA has hired Leslie Schwartz as publicity manager. She was most recently associate director of marketing for the NAL/Berkley.

At Scribner,
Daniel Loedel has been promoted to editor, while Sarah Goldberg and Sally Howe both move up to assistant editor.

Alia Hanna Habib will join The Gernert Company as an agent on November 27. Previously she was an agent at McCormick Literary.

At Workman, Caitlin Rubinstein has joined as senior manager of children's school and library sales/marketing. Most recently, she was marketing manager at Little Bee Books. Diana Griffin has joined as senior publicist. Previously she was publicist for Tor/Forge Books.

Longtime senior editor for books at Entertainment Weekly Tina Jordan will leave the magazine at the end of March, when the publication
relocates to Los Angeles. She has been at EW since 1989.

Nicole Chung has been promoted to web editor in chief for Catapult's website, as
Yuka Igarashi shifts to serve as dedicated editor in chief of Soft Skull Press.

Hannah Bennett is now acquisitions editor for Cleis Press/Viva Editions and all of Start Publishing. She was associate publisher at Rosetta Books.

Figure 1 Publishing has hired Naomi MacDougall as senior designer/art director, and Michael Leyne as editor.

Obituary
Longtime industry executive Sally Dedecker died peacefully Monday evening after losing her long-fought battle with cancer. She ran her own consulting company, Sally Dedecker Enterprises, since 1993, and was honored at the recent Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting with a Lifetime Service Award in recognition of her 'tireless and persistent efforts' as a board member for 22 years. Since 2011 Dedecker also served as Book Expo's Director of Education. She began her publishing career as an assistant to the head of ACE Books, Tom Doherty, and served as an executive at Ingram Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and NAL. An obituary remembers her as "a mentor, champion and friend to many in the book industry." Plans, including those for a memorial service, will be shared at a later time.

Amazon released their big annual Best Books of the Year package, naming David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon their No. 1 title. It's the first time they have picked a nonfiction title as their favorite since choosing The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot in 2010. (At the year's midpoint, the editors preferred Arundhati Roy's novel, but now it has dropped to No. 14 on their list. 12 of the titles, marked with a +, were on the mid-year list as well; asterisks denote books featured in one on of our Buzz Books samplers.)

1.
Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann+
2.
Little Fires Everywhere, by Celeste Ng*
3.
Beartown, by Fredrik Backman+
4.
Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid+
5.
Homo Deus, by Yuval Noah Harari+
6.
Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders+
7.
The Heart's Invisible Furies, by John Boyne
8.
You Don't Have to Say You Love Me, by Sherman Alexie+
9.
Sourdough, by Robin Sloan*
10.
The Dry, by Jane Harper
11.
The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston+
12.
My Absolute Darling, Gabriel Tallent
13.
Ginny Moon, by Benjamin Ludwig+*
14.
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness, by Arundhati Roy+
15.
Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood+
16.
Spoonbenders, by Daryl Gregory
17.
4 3 2 1, by Paul Auster+
18.
This Is How It Always Is, Laurie Frankel+
19.
American Fire, by Monica Hesse
20.
Turtles All the Way Down, by John Green

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