People Roundup, March 2012

PEOPLE

Open Road announced that Tina Pohlman, Vice President, Publisher, Three Rivers Press and Broadway Paperbacks/Crown Publishing, will be its new Publisher, starting on March 5.  Market Partners International conducted the search. Earlier, Open Road announced that former Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Bantam Dell Nita Taublib will be a Strategic Advisor for Romance. And, former Holt Editor-in-Chief Marjorie Braman is joining Open Road as Consulting Editorial Director. She will continue to run her independent literary consulting business for authors.

Callaway Digital Arts, Inc. (CDA) has expanded its management team, including Lisa Holton, who has been named Vice President of Content Development. Holton’s most recent executive post was as President for Scholastic Trade Publishing. CDA will buy some projects from Fourth Story Media (FSM), which she started after leaving Scholastic,  and Holton will continue to work these at Callaway.

HarperCollins announced that Angela Tribelli has been appointed to the newly created position of Chief Marketing Officer, General Books Group. Tribelli, who comes from NYC & Company,  reports to President and Publisher Michael MorrisonStephanie Selah has rejoined HarperCollins as Senior Marketing Manager. She was most recently Marketing Manager at Palgrave Macmillan and first worked in marketing at HarperPerennialHarper Paperbacks, and Avon Trade Paperbacks.

Meanwhile, Rachel Kahan is  joining William Morrow as Executive Editor.  She has worked at G.P. Putnam’s Sons since 2005, most recently as Senior Editor.

President and Publisher of Picador and Editor-at-Large at Macmillan, Frances Coady is leaving the company as part of an editorial restructuring of the paperback imprint. As a result, Picador staff will report to FSG Publisher Jonathan Galassi and Holt Publisher Steve Rubin.  Galassi and  Rubin will oversee the paperback publication of titles they published initially in hardcover.

Quercus Executive Director of Sales & Marketing, Mike McGrath, has been named Publisher of Templar Publishing, effective this summer.  Templar is a Bonnier imprint.

F+W’s Matt Mullin, who was DBW’s Community Relations Manager, has moved to B+N as a Manager of Digital Content.

Earlier in February The Weinstein Company and The Perseus Books Group announced two new positions in their Weinstein Books co-publishing venture — Georgina Levitt as Publishing Director and Amanda Murray as Editorial Director.  Levitt was previously Associate Publisher of Vanguard Press and Murray was mostly recently Senior Editor at S&S.

Bridget Marmion announced the launch of marketing consulting firm, Your Expert Nation, with a national network of experts. She will work with Strategic Partner Rich Kelley (who also contributes to Publishing Trends) and the community of experts to prepare focused marketing campaigns.

In children’s, Jennifer Gonzalez has joined  the Macmillan Sales Department in the new position of VP, Children’s Sales. She hadbeen Director of Sales, Mass Merchants, at Random House for the last three years. Mark Von Bargen is being promoted to Senior Director, Trade Sales, for children’s books.

Roshan Nozari has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Children’s in the new position of E-marketing & Publicity Specialist. She was previously Publicity Associate at Random House Children’s Books Digital Publishing Group.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has named Mary Cullinane as their new SVP of Global Corporate SocialResponsibility. She is based in Boston, reporting directly to CEO Linda Zecher. Cullinane “spearheaded Microsoft’s education-related innovation programs and initiatives worldwide.”

Perseus Books Group announced that David Bronstein has joined the company in the new position of Chief Talent Officer, reporting toDavid Steinberger. Bronstein previously worked at Omnicom Media, Universal Music and MTV NetworksPatrick Kirk has taken the position of VP, Program Office. He was most recently with Credit Suisse.

Webster Younce will join Free Press as Senior Editor; he spent the past two years in Berlin at Suhrkamp Verlag, where he oversaw the company’s English-language and international literature program.

Vanessa Kehren has been named an Editor at Blue Rider Press. She will assist Publisher David Rosenthal and Senior Editor Sarah Hochman on a variety of projects, as well as acquiring titles in both fiction and nonfiction. She was previously an Assistant Editor at Little, Brown.

FSG Senior Editor Paul Elie is leaving to join the Georgetown University faculty as a Senior Fellow with the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. He has been with FSG since 1993.

Katherine Furman has joined Reader’s Digest as Senior Editor for their trade books division. She was previously an Editor at Sterling.

Sumiya Nowshin has joined Tor/Forge Books as Marketing Manager. She was most recently Associate National Accounts Manager at Random House Children’s Books.Contributing Writer and Critic for the New York Times Magazine and Harper’s Wyatt Mason joins Yale University Press as Consulting Editor-at-Large for the Margellos World Republic of Letters, the Press’s series for literature in translation.

Cara Bedick has joined The Experiment in the newly-created position of Editor; she most recently was Associate Editor at GothamAni Chamichian has also joined the company as Sales Director.

Kevin Mulroy has been hired as Publisher of Quayside’s Fair Winds Press and Quiver Books replacing William Kiester who left to start his own publishing venture, Page Street Publishing Company. Mulroy has been at Potomac Global Media after working at the National Geographic Society.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Michelle Yung has been promoted to imprint sales director at Random House Publisher Services, 

Laura Perciasepe has been promoted to Editor for the Riverhead Books hardcover and paperback imprints. She has worked there for five years.

Carmen Johnson has joined Amazon Publishing New York as Associate Editor. She had been an Editorial Assistant at Knopf.

Simon & Schuster Children’s has announced multiple promotions in their marketing department to “both increase our marketing resources and focus them according to the various categories within which we publish,” President Jon Anderson wrote in a memo.

Lucille Rettino has been promoted to VP, Director of Marketing; Elke Villa takes the new title of Associate Marketing Director, and reporting to Elke will be Chrissy Noh, promoted to Senior Marketing Manager. Julie Christopher also takes the new title of Associate Marketing Director, focusing on middle grade, novelty and licensing books, and reporting to her is Carolyn Swerdloff, promoted to Marketing Manager. Holly Hunnicutt has been promoted to Deputy Director of Sub-rights for Macmillan Children’s.

At Quirk BooksJohn J. McGurk has been promoted to the position of Director, Digital & Print Production.

Kevin Callahan has been promoted to Associate Publisher of It Books. He was formerly Director of Marketing for It Books and Harper Design. He joined It Books as Associate Director of Marketing and was involved in the launching of the imprint.

Elizabeth Bewley has been promoted to Senior Editor at Little, Brown Children’s, . She joined their Poppy imprint in 2008. Also, Lisa Moraleda has been promoted to Associate Director of Publicity, and Jessica Bromberg moves up to Publicity Manager.

Billy Kingsland has been promoted to Managing Director at literary agency Kuhn Projects, “both an acknowledgement of his stellar ongoing work serving the agency’s clients as well as an expression of his growing role in the agency going forward.” Kingsland joined Kuhn Projects in 2004 after stints at William Morris and Russell & Volkening.

Caryn Wiseman has been promoted to Senior Agent at Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

DULY NOTED

Barnes & Noble announced the finalists for its Discover Great New Writers Award, which can be viewed on their blog here. Winners will be announced on March 7.

Washington Independent Review of Books, an online publication (www.washingtonindependentreviewofbooks.com) dedicated to provoking and sustaining conversations about all types of books, marks its first anniversary.  The Independent’s first year of operation has seen many notable achievements: more than 400 book reviews posted, more than 120 features, a periodic poetry feature by Grace Cavallieri and two regular columns, a literary calendar, and a steadily growing community of readers.

The London Book Fair will present their ninth annual Lifetime Achievement Award in International Publishing to Jorge Herralde, Founder, Proprietor and Director of Anagrama in Spain.

IN MEMORIAM

Barney Rosset, Founder and Former Owner of Grove Press and Editor-in-Chief of the Evergreen Review, died on February 23, 21, 2012. Over the course of his career, he has championed the First Amendment and the careers of writers, including  Henry MillerSamuel Beckett,  Malcolm XPablo Neruda, and David Mamet.

John Turner Sargent, Sr. died February 5.  He was 87 years old.  Sargent, father of Macmillan President John Sargent, Jr., joinedDoubleday as an Assistant to then President Douglas Black. Following Black’s retirement, Sargent succeeded him as President and subsequently became CEO and Chairman.