SHERRY ARGOV VS. F+W MEDIA

Sherry Argov, author of Why Men Love Bitches, accused F+W Media (parent company of the book’s publisher, Adams Media) of underreporting her book’s sales and tracking royalties incorrectly, especially royalties from translation rights deals.

Arbitrator Herbert Abrams ruled that for the six-month domestic royalty period ending on June 30, 2005, F+W withheld the materials necessary to conduct a royalty audit from Argov’s accountant (Argov believes that over half her foreign rights statements are still missing). The ruling also stated that F+W interoffice e-mails “manifest[ed] an intense dislike of Ms. Argov in her attempt to obtain a royalty audit” and upheld Argov’s unfair practices claim.

Abrams found that Argov had not proven that she was owed money, but he awarded $25 in statutory damages, $200,000 to cover legal fees, and $9,000 in arbitration fees. She is still free to seek underreported domestic royalties for periods after June 2005, as well as all foreign royalties.

David Nussbaum, President of F+W, defended the company. He said the employees accused of unfair practices are no longer working at F+W, and that F+W will cooperate fully with all of Argov’s future foreign rights royalties inquiries.

You can buy the “Uncut” audio version of Why Men Love Bitches, entitled Why We Love Bitches: Uncensored—Men Tell All exclusively on Sherry Argov’s website.

BOOKLOCKER.COM VS. AMAZON.COM

In late March, Amazon announced a new policy requiring publishers of POD titles to use BookSurge, an Amazon subsidiary, for printing. Those who refused would have their “buy” buttons disabled. The Authors Guild e-mailed its members saying, “Once Amazon owns the supply chain, it has effective control of much of the ‘long tail’ of publishing…We suspect this maneuver by Amazon is far more about profit margin than it is about customer service or fossil fuels….We’re reviewing the antitrust and other legal implications of Amazon’s bold move.”

In May, Bangor, ME–based POD publisher BookLocker.com filed a class action lawsuit against Amazon, calling the company’s moves “highly suspicious.” The Small Publishers Association of North America (SPAN) voted to support BookLocker in the lawsuit and has posted a petition on its Web site.

In July, Amazon filed a motion to dismiss the case, saying, “Booklocker.com has not alleged an unreasonable restraint of trade.” BookLocker filed a counter-motion. The judge has not yet ruled on the case’s dismissal.

“Once things hit the courts, they start to crawl, as you probably know,” BookLocker co-owner Angela Hoy told Small Press Blog. “While we’ll have to wait awhile, I’m confident that either Amazon will come to its senses and withdraw their ridiculous plans to take over the printing of POD books, or that, despite Amazon’s pretty verbiage, the court will see the company’s recent actions for what they really are.”

S&S VS. FOXY BROWN AND LIL’ KIM

On July 24, Simon & Schuster filed two separate lawsuits against rappers “Foxy Brown” (real name: Inga Marchand) and “Lil’ Kim” (real name: Kimberly Jones). Lil’ Kim received $40,000 for a novel to be released in 2004. Foxy Brown received $75,000 for her memoir Broken Silence, to be co-written with Kim Osario and released in Fall 2006. Neither manuscript was delivered. Both women spent time in jail (for unrelated offenses); Lil’ Kim was released in 2006 and Foxy Brown was released last April.

Brown’s attorney, Laura Dilimetin, told Web site AllHipHop.com that her client never reneged on the deal, and that S&S agreed to put the project on hold while she underwent surgery for hearing loss. After Brown’s recovery, Dilimetin claimed that S&S decided not to go forward with the book. “I find it suspect that after all of these years of silence, Simon and Schuster pick now to bring this meritless action when they were the ones to halt the project,” she said, but added that Foxy Brown would still love to publish her book with S&S.

No comment yet from Lil’ Kim, and her MySpace page hasn’t been updated since April.

THE LACE READER’S SCORNED PUBLICIST

The scandal here is not that The Lace Reader isn’t a very good book. It’s that Kelley & Hall, the publicity firm for the originally self-published novel, thinks it deserves more recognition for the book’s success than it has received. In an August 14 letter to GalleyCat, Jocelyn Kelley wrote, “We want you to know that we are thrilled with the attention that THE LACE READER is getting…Our only regret is that we have received virtually no recognition for our significant part in these events.” Kelley goes on to say that K&H were instrumental in the book’s eventual sale to William Morrow—they secured a distributor, got the book a starred review in Publishers Weekly, sent 500 galleys to independent bookstores, and were in touch with author Brunonia “Sandy” Barry and her husband daily. Once Morrow bought the book, Kelley writes, Barry “proceeded to hire Stephen King’s accountant, Nicholas Sparks’ attorney and placed all of her publicity needs in the hands of William Morrow. After a year of virtual silence and ignored requests for a quote about the great work we had done, we were invited to the ‘all the little people who helped us’ party…You can see that without us, THE LACE READER would not have achieved the stratospheric success that it ultimately obtained.”

Most GalleyCat commentators agreed that K&H shouldn’t air its grievances publicly. “The whole idea behind a publicist’s job is to promote the book and author, not the publicist,” one wrote; another said Kelley had “shown potential clients that she can harness the power of the media to complain about them.”

CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE SOUL VS. HEALTH COMMUNICATIONS

Back in April, a Connecticut investment group bought the copyright to the Chicken Soup for the Soul brand. The books had been distributed by the Deerfield Beach, FL–based Health Communications, which retains the license to the older titles. (Simon & Schuster was announced as the series’ new distributor in July.) Health Communications owner Peter Vegso refused to turn over the distribution to the older titles, telling the Miami Herald, “It wasn’t a good proposition from my point of view.”* Series creators Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen and the new Chicken Soup owners, William Rouhana and Robert Jacobs, filed a suit against Health Communications for “interfering with the sale of the publishing and distribution rights” and for trademark infringement. That case has settled, and the owners are now suing HCI over royalties that weren’t received. Vegso has responded with a countersuit, saying the new Chicken Soup titles are “very similar to what we’ve done.” He claimed new titles, including Chicken Soup for the Soul: Loving Our Dogs: Heartwarming and Humorous Stories About Our Companions and Best Friends, “cherry pick and . . . take the best stories [from older editions].”

Health Communications is launching its own Chicken Soup–esque “Ultimate” series this fall, and previous Chicken Soup books are still featured prominently on its Web site.

Meanwhile, the new Rouhana/Jacobs group is called Chicken Soup for the Soul Publishing. IMG is handling their licensing, and will be developing, in the words of IMG EVP Tim Rothwell, “eco-friendly, compelling lifestyle and consumer products that complement Chicken Soup’s core values of hope, inspiration, compassion and love.”

*This is a Google cached version of the article, which has been removed from the Miami Herald’s Web site.

RIELLE HUNTER AND JAY MCINERNEY

John Edwards’s mistress, Rielle Hunter, a.k.a. Lisa Druck, dated Jay McInerney in the late 1980s, inspiring the character of Alison Poole in McInerney’s 1989 Story of My Life. “I don’t feel my questions have been answered with regard to Edwards,” McInerney told the New York Daily News. He also said that he was surprised to hear of Edwards and Hunter/Druck’s involvement: “She’s not attracted to conventional guys, and Edwards, with his haircut and all, is a conventional guy.”

After the Edwards/Hunter scandal broke, Story of My Life gained lots of new readers. Vintage ordered an additional printing of 2,500 copies. At press time, the book was out of stock on Amazon.

In unrelated news, McInerney will appear on the CW show Gossip Girl this fall. He will be playing the mentor to the character Dan.

RANDOM HOUSE CANCELS THE JEWEL OF MEDINA

Sherry Jones’s The Jewel of Medina was sold as A’isha, Beloved of Muhammad to Ballantine in spring 2007, in a two-book deal, for a reported $100,000. At the time, Publishers Marketplace described the book as “the story of the favorite wife of the Prophet Muhammad, recreating her marriage at the age of nine, her struggle for personal freedom in a society where women had few rights, and her dedication to The Prophet’s vision of a true faith.” The book was supposed to be published this summer, but Random House canceled it in May. The story broke in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “You Still Can’t Write About Muhammad,” by Asra Q. Nomani.

Nomani’s article identified Denise Spellberg, Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Texas in Austin, as the “instigator of the trouble.” Spellberg received a copy of the galley for review and was extremely upset by it. She told the WSJ that the book was “a very ugly, stupid piece of work. . . . You can’t play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography.”

After reviewing the galley, Spellberg, a Knopf author, called her editor, Jane Garrett. After the phone call, Garrett sent an e-mail to Knopf executives, writing, “[Spellberg] thinks [the book] will be far more controversial than the satanic verses [sic] and the Danish cartoons. Does not know if the author and Ballantine folks are clueless or calculating, but thinks the book should be withdrawn ASAP.”

Spellberg also called a UT guest lecturer, Shahed Amanullah, about the galley. Amanullah e-mailed a listserv for grad students about the book, and his e-mail was later posted on a site called Husaini Youths, along with ideas on how to respond to the book. The ideas, reports GalleyCat, included monitoring and responding to media coverage and arranging media blasts.

Random House Publishing Group Deputy Publisher Thomas Perry said that RH received “from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment” and that RH “postpone[d] publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel.” Jones signed a termination agreement with RH so that her agent could shop the book to other houses.

On August 9, the WSJ printed a letter from Spellberg. She wrote that she did not have the power to “single-handedly stop the book’s publication. Random House made its final decision based on the advice of other scholars, conveniently not named in the article, and based ultimately on its determination of corporate interests.” She also said, “As an expert on Aisha’s life, I felt it was my professional responsibility to counter this novel’s fallacious representation of a very real woman’s life.”

Amanullah told the Austin American-Statesman that he opposed the book’s cancellation, and , and Salman Rushdie told the Associated Press, “This is censorship by fear, and it sets a very bad precedent indeed.”

On her blog*, Jones wrote, “You won’t hear from me again until ‘The Jewel of Medina’ is out, and you have had a chance to read it.” She got one last word in, though, in a guest post on the Washington Post blog Islam Advance.

“So far, discussion has centered around my not-published book, which almost no one has read,” she wrote. “Soon, I hope, we will address the text itself, in published form, and my ideas, derived from research and experience, of moderate Islam as a religion of egalitarianism and, yes, peace.”

*As of press time, Jones’s blog had been taken offline. The link above is to a cached version of the page.

Another busy month of musical chairs, Geoff Kloske has been named VP Publisher of Riverhead, replacing Julie Grau and Cindy Spiegel, who moved to Doubleday in November. Kloske was VP, Executive Editor of the Adult Trade Group at S&S.

Linda Kennedy has resigned as President of Globe Pequot Press “to pursue other interests,” according to a statement from parent company, Morris Communications. She was at the company for 28 years, the last twelve as president. When she started at the company, it published and distributed 25 titles a year. This number has risen to 550, with over 4000 backlist titles.

Chris Hudson, who moved from The Getty Museum to MoMA in September, has hired his former colleague Kara Kirk as Associate Publisher replacing Larry Allen who left last summer. She starts in March.

Carlo De Vito, the former Editor in Chief of Running Press, and Publisher of Chamberlain Brothers, has joined Sterling in a consultancy role to develop and acquire a wide range of books and ‘book plus’ product. He will report to Charlie Nurnberg.

Greg Brandenburgh has been named Director of Bible Publishing at Harper San Francisco. He was most recently VP Sales & Marketing at Thorsons/Element.

Jack St. Mary has left McGraw Hill, where he was VP of Group Sales for the Professional Division.

At Crown, John Glusman has joined Harmony as Executive Editor, reporting to publisher Shaye Areheart. He was Editorial Director at FSG. And Doris Cooper has been hired as Editorial Director of Clarkson Potter. She was Senior Editor at Fireside/S&S.

Pam Dorman has gone to Hyperion as VP Editorial Director of a new imprint, “in partnership” with Hyperion publisher Ellen Archer.

David Allender has joined Scholastic Book Club as VP and Editorial Director. He was Director of children’s publishing at Workman, where he has been since 2002. And Jean Feiwel has joined Holtzbrinck as SVP and Publisher in charge of starting a children’s publishing division. She will also work on other children’s properties already published by the company. Feiwel, who was previously at Scholastic, will report to Alison Lazarus.
And former Rodale trade books VP Publisher Amy Rhodes has moved to Watson Guptill as Publisher and GM.

Claudia Gabel has moved from Alloy Entertainment, to become an editor at BDD children’s books.

In publicity, Jean Anne Rose has become Director of Publicity at Pocket Books reporting to Publisher Louise Burke. She was Publicity Manager at Gotham and Dutton. . . .At Atria, Kathleen Schmidt takes over as director of publicity, reporting to publisher Judith Curr. She was Director of Publicity for Dutton and Gotham. . . .BEA named Roger Bilheimer to oversee all special events, publicity and public relations for the convention, taking over many of the responsibilities of Tina Jordan, who has left for the AAP following Kathryn Blough’s departure. He will, however, remain as an independent consultant. . .

Jennifer Brunn has been named Publicity Manager, ReganBooks, reporting to recently named SVP of Marketing and Publicity, Justin Loeber, and based in New York. Brunn was most recently at Bullfrog & Baum Public Relations firm, and had also worked at Running Press. . . . Judi Powers has joined DK Publishing as Director of Marketing and Publicity. She made the move to DK from Viking Penguin, where she was Associate Director of Publicity.

Scott Shannon, VP, Associate Publisher at Pocket Books, has been named VP, Deputy Publisher, Del Rey, Mass Market and Licensing, reporting to Libby McGuire.

Jack Perry, has rejoined Random House as VP Director of Sales Marketing. He left Scholastic, where he was Trade Sales Director, in September.

Bill Clegg has returned to the agenting world, joining William Morris. Burnes & Clegg was dissolved last year.

Paul Harrington has left Muze for Continuum as National Accounts Manager.

President of Bowker, Michael Cairns, has left the company, and Bowker executive Gary Aiello will oversee operations in the meantime. Cairns can be reached at mpcairns@sprintmail.com.

Hyperion Senior Editor Kelly Notaras is joining Colorado-based multi-media publisher Sounds True as editorial director beginning March 1. The company, which “serves as an interfaith university that embraces the world’s major spiritual traditions and the arts and humanities,” is expanding its book division, launched in 2004.

George Pyne, COO at NASCAR, has been named President of IMG‘s sports and entertainment business.

Chad Beckerman has moved to Abrams as Associate Art Director, fiction, for Amulet and Abrams Children’s. He has been Senior Designer at Greenwillow. Celina Carvalho has been promoted to Assoc. Art Director, nonfiction, for the same divisions, and Vivian Cheng moves up to studio design manager. Tamar Brazis has been promoted to senior editor.
Anjali Singh has moved from Vintage/Anchor to Houghton’s NY office, as Senior Editor.

Katie McHugh joins the Avalon Publishing Group, Inc., as an editor at its Marlowe & Company imprint, reporting to Matthew Lore. She was at Three Rivers/Crown.

Anne Brooks National Accounts Director at Kensington is leaving the company effective February 10. She may be reached at ABrooks9@nyc.rr.com

Karen Cross has left PGW and will announce her plans shortly.

PROMOTIONS

As previously announced, Tina Pohlman will not be leaving Harcourt for Houghton Mifflin after all. Instead, she will remain at Harcourt in the new position of Editorial Director for Harvest.

Katie Finch has been promoted to director of publicity for Miramax Books and the Weinstein Company books program, reporting to publisher Rob Weisbach.

Chip Franzak has been promoted to MD at National Book Network, but continues as CFO.

At Random Audio, Amy Metsch has been promoted to Editorial Director. Tom Perry, RH VP Publicity Director has taken on the additional title, Associate Publisher.

Ann Godoff has promoted Scott Moyers to Editor in Chief of The Penguin Press. He has been with The Penguin Press since its inception.

AOL has named Janet Rollé as VP & general manager of AOL Women’ s & Lifestyle Programming. In her new role, Rollé will oversee the direction and development of editorial content for AOL Coaches, Beauty & Style, Books, Diet & Fitness, Food, Health, Home, Horoscopes, Organizing, Parenting and Weddings. Rollé will continue to oversee the AOL Black Voices service as VP and General Manager.

Knopf announced that Gabrielle Brooks has been named VP Director of Promotion and serial rights, and Sheila O’Shea has been named Deputy Director of Publicity.

Erin Crum has been promoted to Director, Corporate Communications for HarperCollins Publishers.

FEBRUARY EVENTS

Poets & Writers Celebration takes place February 28 at the Ritz Carlton at Battery Park. Individual tickets cost $500 and inquiries may be addressed to 212.226.3586 or go to www.pw.org.

Books for a Better Life takes place on February 27th at the Millennium Broadway Hotel. Go to www.msnyc.org and click on “Events.”

On Tuesday, February 21, at 6:30pm NYT‘s Cultural Editor Sam Sifton (son of publisher Elisabeth) will speak at the Small Press Center. March 2006 is the tenth anniversary of Small Press Month and is co-sponsored by the Small Press Center, PMA, The Independent Book Publishers Association and CLMP. Additional support has been provided by Book Sense and ABA. For details go to www.smallpressmonth.org.

At the Brooklyn Academy of Music‘s “Eat, Drink & Be Literary,” Jonathan Safran Foer is scheduled for February 23 and his wife, Nicole Krauss, is up on June 1. For a full listing go to the National Book Foundation, BAM’s partner in this series, at www. nationalbook.org.

DULY NOTED

Book Tech sent out two different sales brochures this month for up-coming March conferences – one featuring on-line, interactive media for magazine publishers under the Print Media moniker, and one highlighting marketing and distribution under the Book Tech name. While the exhibitors for both conferences are the same, and there is some overlap between the speakers, both conferences exist in parallel universes. Refreshingly, the presenters on the book publishing side (including Richard Sarnoff and Carl Lennertz) are a livelier bunch that the magazine personnel. For information go to: booktechexpo.com, or pubxpo.com.

IN MEMORIAM

Eric Major died of cancer on 14th January age 68. He spent most of his career at Hodder & Stoughton and his last position was at Doubleday in New York where he was in charge of religious publishing from 1996 to 2002.

Helen Barrow, a pioneer for women in publishing died January 16. She joined S&S in 1938 working the switchboard. After leaving in 1974, she formed her own company where she was the head of production for over 20 years. A memorial is planned some time in the future. She was 87.

CDS’ Stanley Cohen has taken a leave of absence and Steve Black has stepped in as Acting Sales Director. David Wilk, VP of Client Services and Business Development, has taken over some responsibilities and a new Client Services Manager, Kerry Liebling, has been hired.

Erin McHugh has been named Director of Creative Services, Trade at Scholastic. She was most recently at Franklin Spier. Meanwhile, Michelle Lewy, formerly VP Sales & Marketing at Scholastic, has left the company and may be reached at MLewy99842@aol.com.

Larry Hughes has moved to HarperBusiness as Publicity Director. He was previously at Penguin. Meanwhile, Dave Conti, Executive Editor of HarperBusiness for the last seven years, will be leaving HarperCollins on November 14. He can be reached at DavidJConti@aol.com or at (973) 650-2076. Lisa Berkowitz, also of HarperBusiness, has left the company and has formed Berkowitz & Assoc., specializing in strategic business communications. She may be reached at LisaBerkowitz@aol.com, or (212) 922-2811.

Alan Smagler has left S&S Children’s, where he held the title of SVP Assoc. Publisher. He may be reached at (917) 912-8050 or ajsmag@aol.com.

Heather Jackson from St. Martin’s has gone to Rodale as Cookbook Editor, reporting to Tami Booth. Louise Braverman has joined Rodale as Assistant Director of Publicity for trade books. Most recently, she held the same title at Atria Books. Nana Greller was recently named Associate Director of Publicity at Atria. She was most recently at Bantam.

Former publisher of Perseus Publishing David Goehring has been named VP and Director of Harvard Business School Press, effective Oct. 27. He will report to David Wan. He succeeds Carol Franco, who has become Editor-at-Large for HBS Publishing.

As previously noted in PT, the NY office of Peters, Fraser and Dunlop (PFD) has added another agent, as Mark Reiter joins the agency. He was previously at IMG.

Laurie Barnett, SparkNotes’ Editorial Director, announces Amy Hegarty has joined the editorial team as test-prep Editor. Most recently she edited multiple volumes in the Road Guide USA series for Fodor’s. Andrew Littell has also joined as Editor. He was previously at McGraw-Hill. The newly launched imprint, FlashKids, announces that Kerrie Baldwin has joined as an Editor. She comes from Scholastic, where she worked as a Production Editor.

Marian Brown has joined Bloomsbury as Director of Publicity. She has worked on a freelance basis for several publishers.

Paul Dinas has joined Penguin’s Alpha Books imprint as a Senior Editor. Dinas was most recently Executive Editor at
Reader’s Digest. He will be based in Alpha’s New York office. (PW)

PROMOTIONS

HarperCollins’ Ardy Khazaei and David Steinberger announce Leslie Hulse’s promotion to Senior Director, Internet Development, from Director, Online Business Development. Sean Abbott has been promoted to Editorial Director, International, for PerfectBound ebooks and to Senior Editor of HC General Books.

Chris Lynch has been promoted to Executive Vice President, Publisher of S&S Audio. Lynch replaces Gilles Dana, who is leaving the company.

Emily Forland has been appointed agent at the Wendy Weil Agency in addition to her duties handling sub rights.

DULY NOTED

DM News reports that Amazon is giving marketers their first crack at Amazon customers on Nov. 17 when it begins a package insert program. The program will start with 500,000 pieces. DM News estimates this will bring in $1.95 million in the next year. In 2004 2.5 million monthly packages will be available, for an annual total of 30 million. Amazon does not rent its postal or email lists.

• Word from Frankfurt officials: No more late hours Friday night. Now we can all rest easy.

November Events
AAP presents “Publishing Latino Voices” on November 7. AAP President & CEO Pat Schroeder will welcome participants and speakers, who include Rene Alegria, Editorial Director of Rayo, Rueben Martinez, Founder and Owner of Libreria Books & Art in LA, and numerous panelists. Contact Kathryn Blough at (212) 255-0200, ext. 263, or kblough@publishers.org.

• 192 Books announces that beginning in November actors, artists, and illustrators will read children’s books on Saturday mornings at 11 am. Actress Blair Brown will inaugurate the children’s reading series on November 1st and read selections from books by Roald Dahl and Eric Carle; artist William Wegman will come with his dogs on November 15 and present some of his titles, including the recently published Chip Wants a Dog.

• Small Press Center presents “Better than Bookstores: Sales and Distribution,” on Thursday, November 21 from 6 to 8 pm. Panelists include Nancy Kranich, Past President, ALA; Martin Schamus, SVP, Special Sales, Sterling; and Tom Woll, President, Cross River Publishing Consultants. For details go to www.smallpress.org.

• On November 18 The Mercantile Library hosts “Rare Books, Fine Wines” at the Century Club, and presents James Salter with the annual Clifton Fadiman medal. For more information about the evening, call (212) 755-6710.

• The National Book Awards are slated for November 19, at the Marriott Marquis. This will be Neil Baldwin’s last year as Director of the NBF. Walter Mosley is the MC. For information call Maryann Jacob at (212) 685-0261.

Mazel Tov
To FSG’s Elisabeth Sifton on the publication of her book The Serenity Prayer (Norton). A party held in her honor included Joe Lelyveld, the Schlesingers, new CJ school dean Nick Lemann, Osborn Elliott, Chip McGrath, and Victor Navasky.

Thirty-five finalists in seven categories have been selected from the 300+ books that were submitted. They are:

First Book: A Million Little Pieces, James Frey, Doubleday; Another Place at the Table, Kathy Harrison, Tarcher/Penguin; Escape from Slavery, Francis Bok, St. Martin’s; Laughing Allegra, Anne Ford, Newmarket; The Essential 55, Ron Clark, Hyperion. Inspirational Memoir: Ambulance Girl, Jane Stern, Crown; Honor Lost, Norma Khouri, Atria; Lost in America, Sherwin Nuland, Alfred A. Knopf; Rescuing Patty Hearst, Virginia Holman, S&S; The Stuff of Life, Karen Karbo, Bloomsbury. Motivational: Seeing Lessons, Tom Sullivan, John Wiley & Sons; There Are No Shortcuts, Rafe Esquith, Pantheon; The Creative Habit, Twyla Tharp, S&S; The Essential 55, Ron Clark, Hyperion; The Joy Diet, Martha Beck, Crown. Psychology: The Anxiety Book, Jonathan Davidson with Henry Dreher, Riverhead; Dante’s Path, Booney Gulino Schaub & Richard Schaub, Gotham Books; Einstein Never Used Flash Cards, Kathy Hirsh-Pasek & Friends, Rodale; The Emotional Energy Factor, Mira Kirshenbaum, Bantam; The New Brain, Richard Restak, Rodale. Relationships: Find a Husband After 35, Rachel Greenwald, Ballantine; Not “Just Friends”, Shirley P. Glass with Jean Coppock Staeheli, Free Press; Saving Beauty from the Beast, Vicky Cropmton & Ellen Zelda Kessner, Little, Brown; The Bully, the Bullied & the Bystander, Barbara Coloroso, HarperCollins; You Have to Say I’m Pretty, You’re My Mother, Stephanie Pierson & Phyllis Cohen, S&S. Spiritual: Beyond Belief, Elaine Pagels, Random House; Not Fade Away, Laurence Shames & Peter Barton, Rodale; Radical Acceptance, Tara Brach, Bantam; Seeking Enlightenment, Nevada Barr, G.P Putnam’s; The Art of Happiness at Work, Dalai Lama & Howard Cutler, Riverhead. Wellness: Honoring the Medicine, Kenneth Cohen, Ballantine; The Macrobiotic Plan to Total Health, Micho Kushi & Alex Jack, Ballantine; The No Grain Diet, Dr. Joseph Mercola with Alison Rose Levy, Dutton; The Truth About Chronic Pain, Arthur Rosenfeld, Basic Books; Ultraprevention, Mark Hyman & Mark Liponis, Scribner.

For more information go to msnyc.org.

Bonnie Ammer has been named to the newly created position of EVP, Publisher at Large, Random House Worldwide, reporting directly to Peter Olson. Her current job as Publisher, Fodor’s Travel Publications, and President, Random House Information Group, will be assumed by David Naggar, who will continue as President, Random House Audio and Diversified Publishing Group. Last week Scott Matthews was named Publisher of Random House Audio and Large Print. He will retain his title of President of Random’s Books on Tape.

Ruth Pomerance, formerly of USAFilms, has become EVP Production and Development for IDT Telecomm-unications, developing animated feature films and direct-to-dvd projects. She will also be starting a special division to publish books that are based on original material in development. She may be reached at Ruth.Pomerance@ corp.idt.net or (973) 438-3094. . . Avalon has hired a new Marketing Director, Sandee Roston, who was most recently at Bloomsbury. She will be based in New York.

In other Random news, Steven Pace, previously Divisional Director, Trade East at Random House, has been named to the new position of VP Director of Retail Sales at Baker & Taylor, in its North Carolina headquarters. Rachel Klayman has gone to Crown as Senior Editor. She was most recently at Free Press. And Jon Ackerman, formerly at Random, has gone to Klutz, managing national accounts.

No news on some of the searches taking place in university presses: Seven months after Bill Strachan left Columbia U. Press (he is now at Hyperion) the search for a new Director is “moving forward but not yet complete,” according to a source involved in the process. And at Harvard Business School Press the search for a successor to Director Carol Franco also continues. Franco will move to the position of Editor-at-Large for the entire HBS Publishing division as soon as a new person is named.

In agency news: October 1st marks the day that a new literary agency, Lippincott McQuilkin & Co, launched. Started by Will Lippincott (who’s keeping his job at Booz Allen part-time) and Rob McQuilkin, the agency is located at 80 Fifth Ave., Suite 1101, NY, NY 10011. Phone number is (212) 337-2045. . . Bob Diforio, Marilyn Allen and Coleen O’Shea are regrouping, with Allen and O’Shea forming the Allen O’Shea Literary Agency. The D4EO Literary Agency will continue under Bob Diforio. . . George Lucas, who recently joined Carlisle & Company, just sold his first book on behalf of Peter Robinson at Curtis Brown, London. Entitled The Rise and Fall of Carthage (by Richard Miles) it went to Wendy Wolff at Viking, for $400k+. Meanwhile, Carlisle & Company has moved its offices to 6 West 18th Street, Twelfth Floor, New York, NY 10011. Agents Christy Fletcher and Emma Parry, who left Carlisle to establish their own agency, Fletcher & Parry, have offices across town, at 121 East 17th Street. . . Wendy Sherman, of the eponymous agency, has a new associate in former Holt colleague Tracy Brown. He will develop and represent his own list of clients under the auspices of the agency. He was most recently Senior Editor at Ballantine. . . And PJ Mark has left IMG to join Collins McCormick as an agent. Word is that Mark Reiter is also leaving IMG, to go to PFD (Peters Fraser & Dunlop), but no announcement has yet been made. In other agency news: Jenny Bent, formerly with Harvey Klinger, Inc., has joined Trident Media Group. . . Tad Floridis has joined Donadio & Olson as an agent. Floridis was VP of Development at Longview Productions and Executive VP at Rightscenter.com. And Anna Stein, formerly of the Wylie Agency, has joined Donadio & Olson, as an Associate.

In Boston: Elizabeth Carduff, formerly Associate Publisher of Perseus, has been named Editorial Manager of Cook’s Illustrated. . . Gary Gentel has been named Corporate VP, Director of Houghton Mifflin’s Sales, Trade & Reference Division. He had been VP of Trade Sales for Scholastic. In other HM-related news, Eric Chinski, most recently Executive Editor at Houghton, has joined Farrar, Straus, also in an Exec. Ed. role.

As reported elsewhere, Mel Parker has left Bookspan, where he was SVP Editorial Director, to pursue publishing opportunities. He may be reached at melpark211@aol.com. Brigitte Weeks has been named SVP and Editor-in-Chief.

In children’s, Elizabeth Law moves to S&S as VP, Associate Publisher of the Books For Young Readers imprint. She had been Associate Publisher at Viking Children’s Books. There are promotions at Knopf & Crown Books For Young Readers imprints, including Nancy Hinkel, who moves from Senior Editor to Publishing Director, Nancy Siscoe, who has been promoted from Executive Editor to Associate Publishing Director, and Michelle Frey, who has been promoted to Senior Editor from Editor. Alix Reid has been promoted to VP Editorial Director and Director of Foreign Acquisitions, of HarperCollins Children’s. And at Penguin’s Philomel Books, Michael Green has been promoted to Associate Publisher, Editorial Director as Pat Gauch steps down from the role of Publisher to become Editor-at-Large. Finally, Gray Peterson has been named VP Sales, Mass Market for Scholastic. He was VP of Sales at AMS’s Dalmatian Press.

OCTOBER EVENTS

The 2003 National Book Festival takes place on Oct. 4, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. between 7th and 14th Streets from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. (rain or shine). The third annual Festival is organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by Laura Bush and is expected to attract “more than 60,000” people.

George Plimpton, whose obituary found its way into the unlikeliest publications last week, was looking forward to the Paris Review’s 50th anniversary celebrations, centered around a gala fundraising event at Cipriani in New York on October 14th. The event — hosted by Garrison Keillor — will proceed as planned, and now will be held in Plimpton’s honor. Tickets to the benefit are still available, and, according to the PR’s editors, “supporters of the Review and admirers of George Plimpton are encouraged to attend.” All proceeds will benefit The Paris Review Foundation. Contact the Paris Review editorial office for more information: (212) 861-0016.

New York is Cookbook Country takes place from Wednesday, October 15 through Saturday, October 18. The kickoff is a Food Writers Panel at Borders Park Avenue, with Jeffrey Steingarten, Ruth Reichl, and others on Oct. 15. On Oct. 16 a chef’s panel, moderated by Judith Jones, takes place at the NY Public Library. Oct. 17 and 18 are the Guest Chef Dinners around the city, along with cookbook signings. Go to www. nyisbookcountry.org for details.

The Small Press Center presents “An Interview with Jane Friedman” on October 23 from 6 to 7:30 at 20 W. 44. The NYT’s Christopher Lehmann-Haupt will interview the HarperCollins CEO. For details go to www.smallpress.org. Small Press Center and The General Society of Mechanics (where the Small Press Center is located) host a lecture series entitled “Wit’s End on West 44th Street,” beginning October 15. Each lecture costs $15, and the series of 5 costs $60. For details go to www.generalsociety.org.

On October 29-30 WRG, in association with the International Intellectual Property Group, presents “Creating New Markets for Entertainment Copyrights: Generating Revenue with New Forms of Digital Distribution in the Face of Piracy.” It takes place at the Flatotel on West 52nd St. Numerous speakers from music, movies, television, and publishing are represented on panels during the two-day conference. Go to www.worldrg.com/fw306/request.asp for details.

IN MEMORIAM

A memorial service for Peter Schwed, the longtime S&S executive who died earlier in the summer, will be held October 17 at 4 pm at the Century Club.

Donations in memory of Pat Sado, longtime book buyer at Coliseum who died September 19, to the Nathalie Sado Educational Fund, c/o Barbara Passy, East Hampton Business Service, 20 Park Place, East Hampton, N.Y. 11937.

Donations in memory of Miriam Bass, who spent more than 30 years in bookselling — the last ten at NBN — may be made to the National Kidney Foundation at 30 East 33rd St., Suite 1100, New York, New York 10016.

As summer winds down, it’s been unusually quiet in publishers’ halls, but look to an interesting Fall, with new positions being created, even as more rounds of layoffs are rumored. Meanwhile:

Holt’s Maggie Richards has hired Richard Rhorer as Marketing Director. He was previously Director of Marketing for the Rayo imprint at HarperCollins. . . Jay Sherman has been named VP, Operations for AMS, reporting to Mike Focht, EVP, Operations. He was with Random House. . . Jim Cook has been named Manager Specialty Retail for Running Press (Perseus Publishing), replacing Rich Kelly, who has left the company. Cook was Director of Sales & Marketing for Taylor & Francis.

SparkNotes has appointed Laurie Barnett as Editorial Director, in charge of all editorial development for its high school and college print and web product lines, reporting to Dan Weiss. She was VP and Editor-in-Chief of the Peterson’s division of Thomson Learning. And Stephanie Karmol has been named Sales & Marketing Associate, reporting to Associate Publisher Robert Riger. She was previously in the Children’s Marketing Group at Penguin. Also departing Penguin is Kelly Notaras, who left Plume to join Hyperion as a Senior Editor.

Ann Binkley, former Director of Public Relations for Borders, is settled into her new role as Executive Director of New York Is Book Country. She may be reached at ann.binkley.nyibc@c2media.com.

Gary Todoroff has moved to Lonely Planet USA, as Director of Sales. His new work email address is gary.todoroff@lonelyplanet.com.

Kensington Books, which recently hired former NAL Executive Editor Audrey LeFehr as Editorial Director and Lynn Bond, formerly of RH Value, as Director of Sales and New Business, has laid off longtime Executive Editor Ann La Farge. She may be reached at alafarge@aol.com.

Between publishing endeavors, Cathy Fox now has her real estate license and is associated with Hudson Affiliates, Inc. in Westchester. She can be reached at (914) 693-8878 or alafarge@aol.com.

As previously reported, Tony Lucki, most recently President of Harcourt, has been named CEO of Houghton Mifflin. He had worked at HM from 1977 to 1987. Pat Tierney, Global CEO of Reed’s Harcourt Education Group (which includes the trade division), will not replace Lucki, but takes on his direct reports.

While PW’s Steve Zeitchik is on sabbatical, Karen Holt has been pitching in. But what’s happening at Book Publishing Report, which Holt left earlier in the year? It’s being run by David Jastrow, who holds the titles of Managing Editor and Senior Analyst. He can be reached by email at David_Jastrow@simbanet.com.

Harlequin has named Sharon Hails to the new post of Director of Sales, Direct Retail. She was most recently SVP for marketing and merchandising at Sher Distributing.

PROMOTIONS

Rodale has recently named Dana Bacher to the position of Marketing Director, reporting to Associate Publisher Cindy Ratzlaff. Dana has been Associate Rights Director at Rodale since 2000. Prior to joining Rodale she held positions at Running Press and Kepler’s Bookstore in Palo Alto.

DULY NOTED

Walker Publishing is moving back to its Fifth Avenue roots: On September 11 it takes over some of Abrams’ space, on the 7th floor of 104 Fifth Avenue. The phone number remains the same: (212) 727-8300.

• The world of small presses has been chattering about an increase in submissions of late. One correspondent notes that “Each has a cover letter in identical format. The last three lines of each letter are the same or virtually so. The stories are not coming from students. The senders all give their backgrounds, including their degrees and teaching experience and previous publications.” He wonders, “Might something like this be the culprit?,” and proceeds to give the URL of Writer’s Relief, Inc. (www.wrelief.com), a New Jersey company that streamlines manuscript submissions. Their site claims that, “If you love to write but hate the business of writing, we can help. Stop spending your valuable time researching markets, requesting guidelines, preparing cover letters, tracking submissions, and doing the many tasks required to see your work published. Rejection letters don’t bother us. In fact, we view them as steps bringing you closer to publication.” The cost for these services isn’t stipulated on the site, but the company claims not to take an agent’s cut, just a fee. And, they say, editors themselves have now become Writer’s Relief clients.

• The last word is in on Otto Penzler v. Michael Viner and vice versa, where Market Partners served as a publishing expert and Penzler was ably represented pro bono by Boies, Schiller & Flexner, and the outcome was a $2.8 million judgment in Penzler’s favor. According to Penzler, the jury of eight was unanimous in their verdict, believing both his testimony as well as the testimony of Harlan Ellison, who took the stand to corroborate the authors’ point of view. The truly happy ending is that Larry Kirshbaum has agreed to issue the rest of the sports mystery series — at least four more titles — under the Warner imprint.

• Last seen on the high seas: one hundred members of The Young to Publishing Group signed up for an evening of sailing recently offered by the AAP — one of numerous activities offered to members of the group, which is funded by the AAP. Membership in the YPG is free and open to “entry-level and junior industry employees (typically with 0-5 years of publishing experience).” Currently there are 600 members from 40+ companies in nine states. The group meets for monthly brown bag lunches, and can sign on to the “Little Big Mouth List” to receive galleys based on stated reading interests. For more information, contact Anne Garinger at agaringer@publishers.org.

SEPTEMBER EVENTS

“The Future of Licensing,” presented by The Licensing Letter, is scheduled for Sept. 9, 2003 at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The keynote will be Andy Mooney, Chairman, Disney Consumer Products. In addition, Yankelovich will present research on consumer trends. Topics include Selling to the Emerging Majorities, Channel Strategies, and The Global Future (with IMG as the model of a global licensing company). To register, call (212) 941-0099 and mention Publishing Trends. (Event is open exclusively to subscribers to The Licensing Letter and Publishing Trends.) Fee is $995 and includes lunch.

• On Sept. 17 New York Is Book Country kicks off the many events that culminate in the 25th anniversary of its Fifth Avenue Fair on Sunday, Sept. 21. Included are a Business Book Day (Sept. 17); a gala evening for authors and their readers on Sept. 18; NY Is Film Book Country on the 19th; a day of speakers that include Steve Martin, Neil Gaiman, and Walter Isaacson on Sept. 20; and the NYT Literary Brunch, featuring among others Mitch Albom, E. Lynn Harris, James Patterson, and Peggy Noonan, on Sept. 21. Robert Lipsyte will MC the event. Go to NYisbookcountry.org for details. The Mercantile Library will host an exhibit of posters that have been created for Book Country over 25 years, from Sept. 4-19. Call (212) 755-6710 for more information.

• The Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center presents “Celebrating the Black Voice Weekend,” September 20-21 at the Aaron David Hall. Regina Morris from William Morris, Marie Brown, Cherise Grant from S&S, and HarperCollins’ Kelli Martin kick off the weekend with a panel on “How to Get Your Book Published.” A dialogue with Derek Wolcott and August Wilson is scheduled for Sunday afternoon. For more information see www.fdcac.org.

MAZEL TOV

Congratulations to Hearst Books Publisher Jacqueline Deval, proud mom of Madeline Emily, born August 4. (Brother Jordan is now 7.)

More Random House movement: Craig Virden, who has been President of RH Children’s and before that, BDD Books for Young Readers, is leaving. Crown’s Chip Gibson will take over, with Rich Romano as his EVP. Meanwhile Jenny Frost, now heading up Random Audio (which she will continue to run), will take over Crown Publishing Group, which now includes Random Information Group’s imprints. Bonnie Ammer will report to Frost, along with Pete Muller, SVP Publishing Operations, Robert Allen, President of Random House Audio, and Lynn Bond, President of Random Value. It is unclear at this point what role Joerg Pfuhl (who had overseen Children’s and Random Information) will play in the reorganization, though he will be involved in audio and international.

Neal Goff has been named President of Scholastic’s Grolier Reference Division, reporting to Dick Robinson. He was most recently Senior VP of Marketing at BMG Music Clubs.

PJ Mark, formerly at Inside.com, and before that, a book scout for Mary Anne Thompson, is moving to IMG as agent. He will be working for Mark Reiter.

Among the 30 or so let go at S&S were Charles Roberts, Regional Manager for Texas and the South West for 42 years, and Karen Weitzman, Foreign Rights Director and 22-year veteran. Meanwhile, Greg Anastas, Director of the online sales group, is now Field Sales Director for Field Key Accounts reporting to Roger Williams (we had earlier reported he had left the company — our apologies). Pocket Book Senior Editor Tracy Sherrod is leaving to set up her own literary agency with partner Beverly Williams. Tony Clark, who had worked at Holt, is also joining the firm which, according to PW Daily, will offer authors a variety of services.

Also, Mike Campbell, most recently of Martingale & Co., is joining Carlton Books as VP Director of Sales in New York
. . . . Alissa Neil has joined PR agency Ellen Ryder Communications, as VP. . . . In the wake of Michael Denneny leaving St. Martin’s, Diane Reverand is rumored to be in active negotiations with St. Martin’s, possibly for an imprint.

AAP HIGHLIGHTS

AAP’s annual meeting took place in Washington, DC, February 27-28, and copyright — Pat Schroeder’s central focus — played a major role in the discussions. In fact, the king of copyright manipulation, Michael Eisner (Disney’s efforts to extend the term of copyright are being challenged in court), was a key speaker. He was in DC to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee in the interests of the content providers who are battling piracy. Meanwhile, Schroeder pronounced the “publishers’ axis of evil” as “postal rates, piracy, and illiteracy.”

At the board meeting on Thursday Hyperion’s Bob Miller officially stepped down from his two-year term as Chair of AAP, and was succeeded by Robert E. Evanson, President of McGraw-Hill Education. And Random CEO Peter Olson asked fellow publishers if they would contribute to the Rosetta Books suit. The response was, we hear, positive.

DULY NOTED

Pat Conroy’s new ms is in: My Losing Season, which takes the reader back to the Citadel, where his earlier novels were set. Publication is scheduled for October ’02 by Nan Talese/Doubleday and his new agent, as mentioned in PT (February) is Marly Rusoff.

• As mentioned elsewhere, Riverhead Books has acquired world rights to publish a book derived from the personal journals of Kurt Cobain, the late lead singer for Nirvana. PT has learned that the amount paid for the journals is reputed to be close to $4 million, with Penguin UK putting in a hefty chunk of the change.

• With Tim and Nina Zagat announcing the expansion of their guides, Fortune’s Tim Carvell speculates on possible future titles: Zagat’s Guide to Accounting Firms, Guide to Economic Forums, and Guide to Petty Grievances in Tim and Nina Zagat’s Marriage. Meanwhile CEO Amy McIntosh has left the firm.

• A contract has been drawn up for the purchase of Klutz Press, which was sold just over a year ago to the Canadian company Nelvana, which was itself recently purchased by a larger Canadian company. At press time the identity of the new buyer was not known.

• Those concerned about Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who was kidnapped on February 23 by revolutionary guerrillas, are urged to email a note of support to ingridporlapaz@hotmail.com. Emails will be forwarded to the Colombian government as a show of American solidarity. The family is also setting up the site ingridbetancourt.org. According to Justin Loeber, Director of Publicity at HarperCollins (and actively involved in galvanizing support for her), the NYTBR will run a review of Betancourt’s memoir, Until Death Do Us Part: My Struggle to Reclaim Colombia (Ecco), on March 17.

MARCH DATES

Winners of the 2001 Barnes & Noble Writers For Writers Award, E. Lynn Harris, June Jordan, and Wally Lamb, will be presented the awards at Poets & Writers’ annual gala benefit on March 5 at the Tribeca Rooftop, 2 Desbrosses Street, New York City.

• The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, March 20-24 (www.tennesseewilliams.net), is in its 16th year.

• The Virginia Festival of the Book will take place March 20-24 in Charlottesville, VA. Marie Arana, Washington Post Book World’s editor, is the luncheon speaker. See www.vabook.org.

• National Book Critics Circle Awards take place on March 11, at the Tishman Auditorium, NYU, New York. Contact Linda Wolfe, wolfelinda@aol.com.

• London Book Fair is March 17-19 at Olympia Exhibition Centre, London, UK. Contact Joanne Veale, 020 8910 7815; joanne.veale@reedexpo.co.uk.

• 14th Small Press Book Fair is March 23-24, NYC; call (212) 764-7021 or visit www.smallpress.org.

• The New York Public Library’s 2nd annual Young Lions Fiction Award will be presented March 20 at the Celeste Bartos Forum. The finalists for the award, which comes with a $10,000 prize, are David Czuchlewski, Allegra Goodman, Peter Orner, Brady Udal, and Colson Whitehead.

PARTIES

Going to school with the right people can pay off as Arthur Klebanoff demonstrated at the Texere party held at the Bloomberg headquarters to celebrate his book The Agent: Personalities, Politics and Publishing. Hizzoner spoke of his school chum, followed by Chuck Schumer. And to reinforce them were Ed Koch, Cindy Adams, and Bill Bradley. A few publishing folks were also sighted.

• Terrence Cheng, director of electronic marketing for Random House, celebrated his first novel, Sons of Heaven, set during the Tiananmen Square massacre. The book is coming from Morrow in May to coincide with the Chinese New Year. The event was splendidly catered and featured some of the best Chinese dim sum this correspondent has encountered.

• Otto Penzler’s reception for Michele Slung at his Mysterious Bookshop to celebrate the publication of her latest anthology, Stranger (HarperPerennial), featured publishers-turned-writers Joe Kanon and Amanda Vail, Voice fashion columnist Lynn Yaeger, NY Post drama critic Donald Lyons, as well as fans that included agents Nat Sobel, Vicki Bijur, and veteran editor (responsible for the current hit, The Red Tent) Bob Wyatt.

• Barney Rosset displayed another side of his mercurial and talented self at the opening of his collection of war photographs taken in China (where he was in the US Army Signal Corps Photographic Services) at the Janos Gat Gallery, where there was much whispering about his autobiography just sold to Gerry Howard at Broadway.

• And the tireless Michael Pollan showed just what it takes (again and again) to sell books (The Botany of Desire is now up to 110,000 copies since last May) at The Stegner Circle (“Readings by Writers of the Land”) benefit lecture on behalf of the Trust for Public Land held at the New York School of Interior Design.

MAZEL TOV

Happy Birthday to AMS, 20 years old and now the proud owner of PGW; to Trafalgar Square, 30, and with a total of 50 clients, eight of them new. Also, best wishes to Aperture, which celebrates its 50th anniversary by a group that included Minor White, Ansel Adams, and Dorothea Lange. And to the Today Show’s literary editor Andrea Smith, recently honored by the AAP. And it’s the show’s 50th anniversary too this year.

What’s up? PT queried those involved in the changes to tell us what they saw from their perspectives and, while there’s no single explanation, some common themes emerged. First, the economy has obviously forced larger agencies to trim their budgets, even as individual agents realized that splitting smaller commissions with the home office was less and less viable. Then too, cheaper and better technology has made it easier for solo agents to manage an office without a staff. Finally, several say quality of life issues come into play: Jody Hotchkiss, who left Sterling Lord Literistic to start his own company (with SLL as a client), says that he reevaluated his own career after the death a Connecticut neighbor who had worked at Cantor Fitzgerald and left behind a wife and young children. Bill Contardi left William Morris as a result of restructuring in the wake of Robert Gottlieb’s departure and Jim Wiatt’s rise in LA, but he plans to continue agenting on his own in both publishing and film, working with independent literary agents for film and TV representation.

Though Linda Chester began to renegotiate her business relationship with her agents on the advice of her accountant, she decided to downsize because she realized that managing staff was not how she wanted to spend her time. She had been paying for Rockefeller Center office expenses and assistants’ salaries, and in some cases, agents’ retainers, but working with authors was getting lost in the day-to-day details. At one point, a total of twenty, including agents Joanna Pulcini, Julie Rubenstein, Paul Fedorko, Fredi Friedman, Judith Ehrlich, and Laurie Fox, were affiliated with the agency. By late August, only one assistant and Laurie Fox were still there, though Fox works in California. Now Chester is subletting her space and taking smaller space in the building. “I wanted to work with creative people and have fun,” she says, rather than managing an office and mentoring new agents. With lower overhead, she hopes to give some of her profits to charity. Julie Rubenstein appreciates Chester’s p.o.v., but says that she’s glad to be on her own and keeping full commissions on books. “Linda was very helpful to me in terms of follow-through after publication,” but the new arrangement that Chester would have offered (with Rubenstein continuing to work at home, but paying expenses and still splitting the commission 50/50) was not financially viable.

Karen Solem also says she found it increasingly difficult to juggle the expense of splitting commissions and a two-and-a-half-hour commute from Columbia County. After “six happy years” with Writers House, she has rented office space in Chatham, and with the help of a part-time assistant, has started her own agency. Referring to her former colleagues, she adds, “No matter how wonderful they are, you pay a steep price.” That’s less and less the case with a solo practice, newly solo film agent Jody Hotchkiss argues. With less overhead and infrastructure required than in the past, he says, an independent agent with a solid client list — who could have once expected to make money in 3 to 5 years — now expects to break even by year one and make money by year two.

Indeed, independence is addictive: Nicole Aragi says she moved because she had had her own business in England and “in the end I succumbed to the urge to do so again.” In between wrestling with Verizon, she closed the Colson Whitehead deal (“a solid six figure” two-book deal with Doubleday/Vintage), is in the process of submitting first-time novelist Monica Ali’s book, and is being “deluged” with submissions.

Marly Rusoff, once an affiliate with Carlisle & Co., succumbed in September, and set up her own shop in Bronxville. Though she remains on good terms with former colleagues, she wanted to do fewer projects and “make the decision where to take my risks.” Having worked in many areas of publishing, she says it’s her “ambition to be available to my authors for the whole publishing process.” She recently signed up Pat Conroy, whose wife, Cassandra King, was already a client. And she has also taken on an associate of her own, Renee Zuckerbrot, who was a colleague at Doubleday. In exchange for helping in the development and selling of a project, Rusoff takes a third of the commission. Rusoff also uses IMG for foreign rights.

There’s a middle way between going it alone and being in a large agency. Having built up a client list at The Robbins Agency over seven years, Bill Clegg joined with ex-LB editor Sarah Burnes to launch their agency in March of 2001. Unlike many agencies, they are an “S corp,” sharing expenses and distributing commission by a formula that has resulted in a profit in year one. Sharing space had brought Henry Dunow, Irene Skolnick, and Martha Kaplan together under one roof originally. Now they’re looking for more space so that they can sublet to other agents. Sally Wofford Girand, who handled foreign rights and was an agent at the Elaine Markson Agency for 14 years, is going into business with four other agents in a co-op venture. She approached everyone after a “9/11 moment,” and is leaving Markson at the end of this month. Meanwhile, David McCormick just exchanged IMG’s large roof for a smaller one with Nina Collins, who is starting a new agency herself. He will be contributing a modest portion of his earnings to cover the company’s overhead.

But Michael Carlisle argues that bigger is better: In business now for four years, he has created a model with some similarities to Linda Chester’s — including the expensive offices — but with a larger on-staff agent base. He also has an affiliate relationship with four other agents, including Paul Bresnick. He said he made a lot of expensive mistakes when he set up: he bought the wrong phone system (too small) and signed up with the wrong Internet service provider (went belly up). The purpose of this set-up is to create a substantial presence in the industry very quickly. This objective increases the odds — as the new kid on the block — that your manuscript submission will be read more rapidly, he says. Those at the Harold Ober Agency would probably agree: Coming off its most successful year ever, the agency just hired agent Alex Smithline from Scovil, Chichak & Galen.

Agents’ contact info: Nicole Aragi: nfaragi@aol.com • Burnes & Clegg: (212) 331-9880 • Michael Carlisle: mvc@carlisleco.com • Linda Chester: Lchester@lindachester.com • Bill Contardi: Wcontardi@yahoo.com / (212) 599-2910 • Jody Hotchkiss: Jody@Haalit.com • Julie Rubenstein: JWREAL@aol.com • Marly Rusoff: marly@rusoffagency.com / (914) 961-7939 • Karen Solem: ksolem@klsbooks.com

Lots of HarperCollins news, beginning with Larry Ashmead’s announcement that he will retire as of the end of 2001. He turns 69 next July 4, and with “almost all my longtime authors publishing their books next year,” including Tony Hillerman, Simon Winchester, Susan Forward, and Susan Isaacs — not to mention a newer Ashmead acquisition, Michael Korda’s (Country Matters) — the time seemed right.

Meantime, Alison Devlin has left DK to become Exec. Dir. of Publicity at HarperCollins Children’s, and Pam Lutz, from Random, has replaced Bill Boedeker. Martha Reddington has been named VP Special Markets at HarperCollins, replacing Frank Foschetta, who left to become SVP Publishing at Marvel Enterprises. He has hired Lisa Dolin (ex-Morrow special sales) as Publishing Director. And Lisa Queen, formerly Editor-in-Chief of Morrow, has taken David Chalfant’s old job at IMG. Chalfant, meanwhile, has been named SVP Business Development at Siegelgale, where he will be in charge of brand management and extension for media, publishing and entertainment. The company’s clients include The Industry Standard, Reciprocal, Scholastic, and The College Board.

As has been reported over the last few weeks, OneBigTable is shrinking fast, and the principals, including Arthur Samuelson, ex-publisher of Schocken, are looking for a job. (The New York Post insists on referring to Arthur and wife Molly as “the O’Neills”.) . . . Judy Klein has left Bertelsmann’s Booksonline, where she was Editor-in-Chief, to travel. She will go to Africa and from there, possibly to “India and Nepal, then maybe Southeast Asia, wherever my itchy feet take me for the next four months.” . . . Linda Stormes has gone to Book Magazine and, as of October 2 will be managing sales and advertising, with an emphasis on the publishing world. . . . Doubleday’s Art Director, Mario Pulice, went to Little, Brown. . . . Anne Messitte has been appointed VP Publisher, Vintage and Anchor Books, effective immediately. She was previously VP Associate Publisher.

Millbrook’s deal to buy DK Ink has fallen through (for now), but they have hired Knopf’s Simon Boughton as publisher. And Neal Porter is setting himself up as a consultant/packager. The company is Porterhouse, “rare books, well done.” He may be reached at (212) 765- 4774; porterhouse@earthlink.net.

Sandra Zane, formerly Subsidiary/ Foreign Rights Manager at the Dijkstra Agency, has relocated to NY from California to join Franklin & Siegal Associates. . . . Bill Goldstein, Books Editor of NYT Online has been given additional responsibilities. He will oversee the relaunch of the cultural site, and beginning October 6, will review books weekly on NBC Today in NY. . . . Steven Sussman, previously Publisher of Exley Giftbooks and before that, Dorling Kindersley, has opened Siegel/Sussman, a consulting, marketing and sales company . . . . Chip Lovitt, erstwhile of Grolier, has been named Senior Editor of Readers Digest Children’s Books.

Since Abrams bought STC, there had been several casualties, reported in this very newsletter. But now we hear that the top people who were laid off by Abrams have been rehired to their old positions by their French owner, headed by Herve de la Martinière, and that, other than on day-to-day budgeting issues, the company now reports directly to France. An official announcement is forthcoming.

DEALS

Following Bookspan/BOMC’s announcement that it would sell Stephen King’s Secret Windows: Essays and Fiction on the Craft of Writing exclusively as a dual main selection, we asked Executive Editor Arthur Goldwag how this came about. He tells us via email: “This was one of those fortuitous inspirations that began as wishful thinking and then surprised everyone by actually coming to pass. On Writing had us all buzzing about what a good nonfiction writer King is and how welcome a gathering of his occasional essays might be; how intriguing it would be to see some of his juvenilia; how quirky and witty and subversive an extemporaneous speaker he is and how much his fans might appreciate having his best lectures and interviews preserved between hard covers; how brilliant and under-read the chapter on horror fiction in Danse Macabre is and how worthy of reprinting; etc., etc. To our delight, everyone that might have hindered the project helped us instead: Stephen King gave us his blessing (and access to archival material), Susan Moldow and Arthur Greene [King’s agent] were enormously cooperative, Peter Straub wrote an amazing introduction. Kathy Kiernan, BOMC’s director of Book Development, did the lion’s share of research and generally shaped the book. We’re very proud of the result.”. . .

Marshall Editions will become the exclusive brand licensor outside of the US for all children’s books from Discovery Channel and Animal Planet. Dutton publishes in the US.

EVENTS

Well, here he comes again! To coincide with the publication of André Schiffrin’s The Business of Books, Verso’s publisher Colin Robinson organized a panel discussion for the evening of September 29 (Rosh Hashanah!) at the Deutsches Haus (!), to air the grievances which led to Schiffrin’s departure from Pantheon and the founding of The New Press ten years ago. As this coincided with Publishing Trends’ deadline, we asked the panelists to give us a preview:

Harper’s Lewis Lapham is concerned that too many books are being published, and that nothing is failing to find some sort of distribution. He describes the US as a “reasonably literate” society but not a “literary” one. Columbia U. Press’s Bill Strachan takes exception to Shiffrin’s criticism that university presses have gone “commercial.” He agrees that there has been a shift within trade publishing, where each book’s, rather than the list’s, profitability has become the norm, but thinks university presses have not shirked their responsibility to publish certain kinds of challenging titles that trade publishers have been forced to abandon.

All shared the concern that conglomeration in general in the US and globally has led to a uniformity and lack of diversity. And Verso’s Robinson laments that, the larger the conglomerates and the more noise they are able to make with their increased and available marketing dollars, the more likely the small voices of the independent publishers will be drowned out. And, he adds, we live in a very noisy world as it is.

CYBER

Elliott Masie, who runs Techlearn, a company that covers online education, recently posted the following: “A Virtual Day at a Trade Show: Today, as I write this edition of TRENDS, I am experimenting with a new activity: working a Trade Show Booth by Video. For the entire day, I will be in the MASIE Center booth at the Lakewood OLLO event in Denver. My staff are on-site but I am in my office, connected by video-conference, to do “booth duty.” Folks that I know from the industry are stopping by, asking questions and I am in the office, relaxing and sleeping in my own bed tonight. Cool!” When Publishing Trends queried him about this emerging trend, he wrote back: “I think that we are on the starting end… as I respond to you, my booth is set up in Denver and I am the “talent” in the booth… and much better traffic than surrounding booths.” Is it, we wonder, too late to cancel our Frankfurt reservations?

DULY NOTED

In celebration of Grove’s fiftieth anniversary, Morgan Entrekin, Grove/Atlantic’s Publisher, has written a paean to the company and its founder, Barney Rosset, in the publisher’s winter catalog. Entrekin reminds the reader that Grove published a string of first amendment landmarks, from Lady Chatterly’s Lover to Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch, but also such works as John Rechy’s City of Night, Che Guevara’s diaries and Timothy Leary’s Jail Notes, and the first works of Tom Stoppard, David Mamet and Harold Pinter. Throughout the catalog there are pieces about iconic writers written by current and well-known Grove authors — Dennis Cooper on Jean Genet; Darcey Steinke on Henry Miller; Larry Kramer on D.H. Lawrence; etc. All in all, it is a memorable catalog.

Kristina Peterson leaves Random Children’s to take over as President of S&S’s Children’s division. . . . Meanwhile Vivian Antonangeli has left Reader’s Digest Children’s, following the arrival of Harold Clarke — previously President of RH — as VP Publisher New Market Development for Global Books and Home Entertainment. Antonangeli, who had been GM and President of the division, is reachable at 917 744-2955. Rosanna Hansen, who had been Publisher, has also left the company. . . . Paul Golob will be joining Public Affairs as executive editor in September, after less than three months as an editor on the New York Times Op-Ed page. Prior to that he was at Free Press and Basic. And speaking of FP, congrats to Bill Shinker, newly named VP and Publisher. . . . Warner’s Anita Diggs has joined Ballantine’s One World imprint as Senior Editor, reporting to Maureen O’Neal, and replacing Cheryl Woodruff, who has resigned
. . . . After 20 years, Mark Magowan, VP of Abbeville, is leaving to join Abrams after Labor Day as Associate Publisher, fueling rumors that his former employer is on the block. Meanwhile, his new employer is the likely purchaser of the assets of STC, Golden Turtle, and selected Smithmark titles.

The past month has brought a lot of change to media coverage of books: David Kirkpatrick has begun his tenure at the NYT, Elizabeth Manus has moved out of the New York Observer offices and is now on general assignment, and Celia McGee has moved to general assignment at the Daily News. Paul Colford from Newsday has replaced her on the book beat and will also write on the electronic and virtual media.

Quick takes: Tom Spain and Jackie Farber are out at Dell/Delacorte. The former had been Maeve Binchy’s editor, but when Carole Baron went to Dutton, the author followed her there. . . . Marcy Posner and Dan Strone have both left the NY office of the William Morris Agency. . . . Natalie Chapman has left Discovery Books, where she was Publishing Director. Dorothee Grisebach, Editor in Chief of Droemer Knaur, has been let go as part of the latest Holtzbrinck re-organization. . . . Publishing News reports that HarperCollins UK Sales and Marketing Director David North has been named MD of its trade division, Pan Macmillan. He replaces Ian Chapman, who left at the end of last year to head up S&S. Meanwhile, James Kellow, Marketing Director at Fourth Estate, is leaving to take up the new position of UK Sales and Marketing Director at S&S UK.

Erin McHugh, former Executive Vice President, Executive Creative Director, and partner at Spier New York, has joined the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York’s statewide gay and lesbian political advocacy organization, as Director of Member & Institutional Support. She served on the Pride Agenda’s Board of Directors for most of the past decade. Niko Pfund, Director and Editor-in-Chief, has left for OUP to become Academic Publisher. Pfund started his publishing career at OUP, as an editorial assistant. And Chris Rogers has been appointed College Editorial Director. He was previously Director, New Business Development for Wiley.

Nina Hoffman has been named EVP of the National Geographic Society and President of the Books and School publishing group. She was formerly SVP Publishing. . . . Michael Stephenson, currently VP, Editor in Chief of Doubleday Direct’s Specialty Clubs, has been given the same titles for New Book Development at BookSpan, overseeing book development for all clubs.

Motorbooks Publishing, a piece of the recently spun off SF Chronicle publishing group, has made the following appointments: Mike Hejny, formerly VP, Merchandising at Barnes & Noble, has been named VP of Sales and Marketing; Ben Jones is VP, Direct Marketing, formerly of Heritage House, Carl Fazio is VP and CFO, formerly McGraw-Hill Medical Division, and Brad Savola is VP and CTO, formerly of Fair Isaac database marketing.

DEALS

It’s been a big book summer, with the latest million-plus deal just announced: Sun Microsystems co-founder and chief scientist Bill Joy’s book has been sold by Kathy Robbins to Penguin’s Rick Kot for $1.6 million +. . . . It is based on Joy’s April 2000 Wired magazine article, “Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us.” Robbins was already doing well in this period we used to label as the summer doldrums: she recently sold David Denby’s book to Little, Brown for $500k +.

MEDIA

What’s with this increasing interest on the part of all media — print, tv, radio and, of course, electronic — in books? It’s a barrage, with endless stories on individual authors (Rowling, Fox (Michael J.), Rubin (Robert), Welch (Jack)); new e-initiatives (iPublish, iWrite, I’m Stephen King); bestseller lists, unread bestsellers, pre-pubb’ed bestsellers (HP #5) — and on and on and on. Even the staid Economist has announced that, beginning in September, they will expand the number of pages devoted to books and will run those weekly, rather than the current ten times a year. And, the new weekly section — now called “Moreover” — will be renamed “Books and Arts.”

In an interview in Gannett’s The Review Press IMG’s Mark Reiter speculates that German and Japanese rights to Jack Welch’s book will each go for “north of $1 million,” and denies that his commission for the $7.1 million deal was a cool million. He also confides that within the decade he “hopes to find himself writing books full-time,” but wants to represent one particular client before he leaves agenting. The name? Warren Buffett.

DULY NOTED

Come Fall, publishers will have to choose between three publishing conferences, all scheduled within a week of each other. Reed’s ePub Expo will be held Oct. 31–Nov. 1 at the Millennium, while Internet World’s e-Book World takes place at the Marriott Marquis on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 6–7. The former will focus on the management, distribution and production of digital content. (See PT page 8 for details.) Seybold is holding what purports to be a publishing show in San Francisco at the end of August. It is, however, weighted heavily in the direction of technology, though there are sessions on Digital Rights and Digital Asset Management, ebooks, etc. Click on www.seyboldseminars.com.

Word comes to us that the 25th annual University of Denver Publishing Institute opened on July 10th on the University of Denver campus with 91 students — all college graduates. The program was co-founded by Elizabeth Geiser and includes as instructors Elisabeth Scharlatt of Algonquin Books, Jane Isay of Harcourt Trade, Arnold Dolin, formerly of Penguin, and others. At a gala dinner at the Fourth Story Restaurant (atop the Tattered Cover), six graduates of the program spoke of their careers, among them Tari Warwick (vp, Perseus Books Group), Meg Ruley (Jane Rotrosen Agency), Jeanne Martinet (author of The Artful Dodge), and Reid Hester (editor with Mayfield Publishing).

PARTIES

Overlook’s party for cutting edge novelist Brad Gooch was held by and at Diane von Furstenberg’s loft-cum-showroom (a family emergency called Ms. von F back to Belgium) and included Barry Diller, Jonathan Burnham, Jay McInerney, Mary McFadden, fashion photographer Carter Smith, Bret Easton Ellis (a co-host), and other trendy novelists such as Ben Neihart, Christopher Bram, and Fred Tuten.

IN MEMORIAM

We sadly note the passing of Workman‘s Sally Kovalchick on July 15th.

This month, the announcement of the millennium comes from Penguin Putnam, which has hired retired Commanding General Gilbert S. Harper of the US Army as VP for warehousing and fulfillment. Responsibilities in his previous life included “designing the Army’s next generation distribution architecture.” Industry watchers like the image of the soldier reporting to our own General Grann. . . Other PP news: Marcia Burch, Penguin Director of Marketing has left the company after 30 years. (She may be reached at 718 768 1331). She has been replaced by Random’s Director of National Accounts Marketing Group, John Fagan. Moving up from Associate Director of Marketing and reporting to Fagan is Christine Caruso, now Director of Communications.

Steve Murphy, EVP and MD of Disney Worldwide Publishing, has resigned to become President and COO of Rodale, succeeding Robert Teufel, who has retired. The company will buy Murphy a house in Emmaus, PA., where Rodale is located. Other Disney departures include Lauren Wohl, heading for Winslow Press as VP Marketing. Meanwhile Karen Kelly, formerly of Rodale, where she headed Daybreak, a health and spirituality imprint, and Warner, has gone to Careerbay.com.

The myriad departures at S&S include Phil Duva, SVP Operations, for WRC Media, where he will be EVP and COO, and Seth Gershel, from S&S Audio. He will be replaced by Gilles Dana, Publisher of New Media, who will be Acting Publisher. Meanwhile, David Lappin joins S&S as VP Director of National Accounts. He was RH’s SVP Executive Director of Sales. Executive Editor Emily Heckman has left Pocket Books. Carisa Hays, late of BDD and iVillage, will join The Free Press as VP Director of Publicity. . . In the continuing saga of cookbook editors on the move, Maria Guarnaschelli has left Scribner. And Annik LaFarge, VP & Associate Publisher of the S&S trade division, also leaves for Steven Brill’s Contentville.com as Director of their e-book division. She will join two other book industry veterans, Susan Dalsimer, ex Miramax/Talk books publisher who is consulting for the soon-to-launch site, and John Conti, as reported last month. . . .

Sterling announces the hiring of Steve Magnuson as VP Editorial. He was most recently Director of Publishing for Harmony and Three Rivers Press. Reporting to him will be Frances Gilbert, children’s book Acquisitions Editor, lately of Scholastic Canada where she ran the Arrow book club, before becoming book fairs Product Development Manager. Robin Strashun has also joined the company as Director of Marketing. She was Director of Marketing for special markets for Crown, Fodor’s and Random Reference. Charles Nurnberg also announces a co-publishing deal with children’s book packager Pinwheel.

After an extended search, OUP has promoted one of its own, Laura Brown, VP and Director of Trade Publishing, to the position of President, replacing Ed Barry, who has retired. In other university press news, Charles Grench, Editor-in-Chief at Yale U. Press, went to U. of North Carolina Press after Lewis Bateman left there for Cambridge U. Press. And Liz Hartman has left Columbia University Press and will go to OUP in charge of marketing, replacing Mary Ellen Curley, who went back to HarperCollins earlier this year.

Linda Cunningham was named VP Publishing for Questia Media Inc., a web-based research service for students and scholars. She was formerly SVP Publishing Dir. of HarperResource and HarperAudio.

Leaving RH is Bill Barry, formerly SVP Corporate Development, for IDG Books, where he will be president and COO based in NYC. In cookbookland, Little Brown’s Jennifer Josephy has been put in charge of the cookbook program — and more — at Broadway/Doubleday. Trigg Robinson McLeod, formerly VP Director of Publicity for Broadway, has joined PGW as Director of Marketing, reporting to Mark Ouimet, SVP Sales & Marketing.

David Chalfant has left IMG. . . Mary Wowk has left Anness Publishing to pursue other interests. (She may be reached at 212 877 8801.) Paul Beason has left St. Martin’s to join Workman as Export Sales Manager.

DEALS

Nat Sobel swiftly moved Tom Kelly’s option novel from Knopf to FSG’s Paul Elie in a two-book deal after Sonny Mehta neglected to exercise his option in a timely manner. (Knopf had published Payback.) Both books are “thriller-ish.” The first, titled Inwood (from that section of NY where it’s set), is about the Teamsters, and the second will have to do with constructing the Empire State Building.

Elaine Koster has been busy lately. Along with her six fig. deal with Martha Levin, Hyperion’s VP Publisher, for a special agent about the FBI by Candice Delong, she has sold two other titles, both involving former colleagues: Joe Pittman, now a Sr. Ed. at NAL whom Koster originally hired, wrote Tilting At Windmills, a novel described as a “male weepie,” whose English language rights were sold to Judith Curr at PB for “good money.” And Deb Brody (whom Koster had also hired at NAL, and who is now at Holt) bought Taming the Hunger Within by Marcia Herrin, who is in charge of the Eating Disorder Program at Dartmouth. She was featured in a People cover article on eating disorders written by Nancy Matsumoto, who will be her co-writer on this book. . . .

Lois Wallace has sold a biography of Ben Franklin in Paris by Stacy Schiff to Henry Holt for a rumored $400m+. . . S&S has acquired the rights to the next two James Lee Burke novels from Phil Spitzer, where Pat Mulcahy’s services as editor will be retained separately. Burke has now moved with Mulcahy for all 11 of his books, starting at LB with Black Cherry Blues to this his eleventh novel, Purple Cane Road. Mulcahy was most recently Editor-in-Chief of Doubleday.

Yes, Mrs. Goleman, a psychologist for the past 20 years and doubtless an inspiration for her hubby Daniel’s mega bestsellers growing out of Emotional Intelligence, has sold her own book. Actually Eileen Cope at Lowenstein Associates sold it after Frankfurt last year to Harmony, and it’s been raking in the foreign rights sales ever since, according to Rights Director Rebecca Strong. Based on the original proposal alone they have contracted for over $300,000 in foreign rights income (6+ countries) with deals in Spain, France, and Japan among others still to come, and publication not scheduled till 2001.

PARTIES

The first annual New Yorker Book Awards, a kind of literary People’s Choice Awards, were celebrated at the New York Public Library’s third-floor reading room on Valentine’s Day. As announced, Annie Proulx took the Fiction Award for Close Range; Edward Said the non-fiction award for his memoir Out of Place; poetry went to Louise Gluck; Best Debut to Jumpa Lahiri; and lifetime achievement (presumably for his literary accomplishments) to proud new father Saul Bellow. After the surprisingly brief formalities, guests including a range of authors (AM Homes, Junot Diaz, Donald Antrim), publishers (Jack Romanos, Kathryn Court, Dick and Jeannette Seaver), agents (Lynn Nesbit, Sloan Harris, Nicole Aragi) and other literary types, descended to the Celeste Bartos Forum. The once elegant room had been transformed into a louche postmodern cabaret space (perhaps Tina Brown’s decorator is still on retainer), where a multi-course meal was passed around by waiters while attendees awaited a performance by Rufus Wainwright.

For the third year, the National Arts Club hosted the announcement of the LA Times Book Awards finalists. Steve Wasserman, Book Editor for the Times, named the finalists after a splendid tribute to book publishers and writers everywhere. Finalists for the award for fiction include Amit Chaudhuri’s Freedom Song: Three Novels; Andre Dubus III’s House of Sand and Fog; Kent Haruf’s Plainsong; Ja Hing’s Waiting; and Annie Proulx’s Close Range: Wyoming Stories. Among other awards to be given is the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. Dava Sobel, Stuart Applebaum, and Bill Straun were spotted at the event, not to mention Frank McCourt and Arthur Schlessinger Jr. The awards will be presented on April 29 in LA.

MAZELTOV

Welcome to Greta Maneker, born to Marion (Features Editor of NY Magazine, ex-S&S) and Liv Grey on Dec. 13.