BTW News Briefs

Lance Fensterman Named President of Global ReedPop

Lance Fensterman has been promoted to president of Global ReedPOP, the pop culture division of Reed Exhibitions, which runs BookExpo, the largest trade show in the book industry, TSNN Trade Shows reported.

Fensterman, who will continue to report to Hervé Sedky, joined Reed Exhibitions in 2006 to help launch the division, which now produces 38 events across 11 countries and five continents. Besides BookExpo, this list includes New York Comic Con, Penny Arcade Expo, EuroGamer Expo, Star Wars Celebration, and more.

Over the past five years, according to TSNN, Fensterman has helped triple revenues on the U.S.-based ReedPOP shows and led the company’s global expansion into new markets, including Paris, Seoul, Vienna, Shanghai, Singapore, India, Australia, and the U.K.

BookExpo 2018 will be held from Wednesday, May 30, through Friday, June 1, at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Announcing the First Annual Midwest Bookseller of the Year Award

The Midwest Independent Booksellers Association (MIBA) has announced the first annual Midwest Bookseller of the Year award, to be presented to one bookseller in MIBA’s region who “exemplifies the courage, commitment, and creativity that characterizes independent bookselling in the Midwest.”

Between April 1 and April 30, all members of the book industry can nominate booksellers for this honor. MIBA’s staff and board of directors will determine the finalists in May and vote on the winner in June. The winner, who will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the fall trade show and conference, will be announced in early July and will be honored at the Heartland Fall Forum’s Book Awards on October 3.

Any Midwest bookstore employee is eligible for the award, though candidates cannot nominate themselves, nor can their family members. Current MIBA board members and employees of bookstores represented on MIBA’s board of directors are also ineligible. Booksellers with inquiries about the new contest can contact MIBA Director of Operations Robert Martin.

National Book Festival Speakers Announced

The Library of Congress has announced the featured speakers for this year’s National Book Festival.

According to the Library’s March 28 announcement, the authors, historians, poets, and children’s writers slated to appear include: Madeleine Albright, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jon Meacham, and Ron Chernow in the category of history and biography; poets Tracy K. Smith and Amy Tan; in the children and teen category, Junot Díaz, Matt de la Peña and Loren Long, Leigh Bardugo, and Jacqueline Woodson; and novelists Isabel Allende, Dave Eggers, and Jennifer Egan.

The 2018 festival will be held on Saturday, September 1, from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. The Main Stage lineup, additional authors, and other details will be announced in the coming months on the festival website.  

Publishers Announce New Distributors, Acquisitions

LSC Communications has acquired TriLiteral LLC, which specializes in distributing books published by university and academic publishers, Publishers Weekly reported. Harvard University Press, MIT Press, and Yale University Press, TriLiteral’s three former owners, have signed multi-year fulfillment agreements with LSC and TriLiteral.

In addition, Turner Publishing Company has acquired Gürze Books, which specializes in books on eating disorders, PW reported.

PW also reported that Abrams will now distribute Cameron + Company’s Cameron Books and Cameron Kids imprints in North America as of April 4, 2018, moving distribution responsibilities from Publishers Group West. C+C’s general nonfiction imprint, Roundtree Press, will remain with PGW.

Red Chair Press Announces Launch of New Imprint, One Elm Books

Red Chair Press, publisher since 2009 of fiction and nonfiction series for children ages 4 to 12, has launched a new trade imprint called One Elm Books., the company announced last week.

One Elm, which will focus on single-title intermediate and middle grade novels for readers ages 9 to 13, will launch in August with the release of A Calf Named Brian Higgins by debut author Kristen Ball. All Red Chair Press books are distributed by Lerner Publisher Services.

Court Dismisses Privacy Claims by Lindsay Lohan

The New York Court of Appeals has affirmed the dismissal of actress Lindsay Lohan and TV personality Karen Gravano’s claims in Gravano and Lohan vs. Take-Two Interactive Software, Media Coalition has reported.

In January, the American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE), along with nine other media organizations, joined an amicus brief in the case, which stems from a Grand Theft Auto V computer game from Take-Two that features characters allegedly based on Lohan and Gravano. The two women claimed that this violated what is generally called their “right of publicity” (or “right of privacy” in New York).

The brief written by the general counsel to Media Coalition supported Take-Two’s argument that the company has a First Amendment right to work real famous people into their stories, something that has long been done by creatives. On February 7, the court heard oral arguments from lawyers on both sides.

In the March 29 ruling, the Court held that, while an avatar could be a portrait under the statute, the avatars in these cases were not “reasonably recognizable as” the plaintiffs. 

Voting Underway for One Book, One New York

The One Book, One New York initiative, which aims to promote healthy reading habits throughout New York City, is returning for a second run in April, amNY reported. The collaboration between the Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, Vulture, and New York magazine debuted last year.

New Yorkers can vote for one of five nominated books throughout the month by visiting the contest site. Here are the five books up for a vote:

• If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (The Dial Press)
• Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (Scribner)
• White Tears by Hari Kunzru (Vintage Contemporaries)
• Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue (Random House)
• When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago (Da Capo Press)

Events will be held at libraries and venues across the city to discuss the winning book, to be announced on May 3. Last year’s winner was Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Knopf).

New Yorkers can vote for their favorite here.

Winner of 2018 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction Announced

Weike Wang, author of Chemistry (Knopf), a first-person narrative of a graduate chemist’s personal and professional indecision, is the 2018 winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Fiction, PEN announced Thursday, March 29.

Wang has an undergraduate degree in chemistry and a doctorate in public health from Harvard University, as well as an MFA from Boston University. She is also a “5 Under 35” honoree of the National Book Foundation and a winner of the Whiting Award.

Founded in 1976 by Mary Hemingway, the widow of Ernest Hemingway, the award was given to a debut novel or short story collection published in 2017 by an American author who has not previously published a full-length book of fiction. The award is funded by the Hemingway family, the Hemingway Foundation and Society, and PEN America.

Wang will receive a $25,000 prize and a residency from the University of Idaho’s MFA Creative Writing Program. She will receive her award on April 8 at a public ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Silber Wins 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award 

Improvement, the 2017 novel by Joan Silber (Counterpoint Press), has been selected as the winner of the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

The winning book, which was announced April 4 by the directors of the PEN/Faulkner Foundation, is a series of interlinked stories revolving around a single mother living in Harlem. Improvement was recently nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction and listed as one of the year’s best books by the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, and others.

Silber is the author of eight books of fiction, including The Size of the World and Ideas of Heaven (both W.W. Norton). She lives in New York and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program.

The PEN/Faulkner Award honors the best published works of fiction by American citizens in a calendar year and is America’s largest peer juried prize for fiction. Silber will receive $15,000, while the prize’s four finalists will each receive $5,000.

All authors will be honored during the 38th Annual PEN/Faulkner Award Ceremony at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., on May 5. Visit the PEN/Faulkner website for more details.