BTW News Briefs

Anderson’s Bookshop Owner Becky Anderson Running for Congress

Becky Anderson, co-owner and manager of Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Aurora, Downers Grove, and La Grange, Illinois, is running for Congress in Illinois’s 6th Congressional District, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Anderson, who has served on the Naperville City Council since 2015, is running as a Democrat in the 2018 Democratic primary (under the name Becky Anderson Wilkins) for a chance at Republican U.S. Representative Peter Roskam’s seat.

“I think in being on the city council and having to work with budgets, and also being a small business owner, I know that the bottom line is extremely important to survival,” Anderson told the Tribune. “In the end, it’s about those you serve and building that community and those relationships with schools, children, parents, not-for-profits.”

Anderson has served as president of the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association Board, and served on the American Booksellers Association Board for eight years, the last two as president. Anderson is also co-founder of the Naperville READS program and the founder of IndieBound Naperville.

The campaign’s first video, “Heavy Lifting,” was filmed at an Anderson’s Bookshop location.

Macmillan to Move Downtown, Consolidate Offices

Macmillan Publishers has signed a 20-year lease with Silverstein Properties to occupy 261,000 square feet at 120 Broadway, a 40-story, 1.8 million-square-foot downtown Manhattan office tower, according to The Real Deal, a real estate news publication.

The publishing company will relocate in early 2019 from multiple locations, including the Flatiron Building, where it was the sole tenant, to occupy five floors at the historic tower. The move was announced earlier in April, but the size of the space was not clear at time, The Real Deal reported.

The building, known as the “Equitable Building,” spans a full city block and was the largest office building in the world when it opened in 1915. The property features a grand lobby with high ceilings and in-building subway access.

Ingram Content Group Announces Promotions and New Hires

Ingram Content Group has announced a number of associate promotions and new associates who have joined the company.

Tricia Racke Bengel has joined Ingram Content Group as a library sales and services manager for Ingram Library Services LLC. Prior to Ingram, she served as assistant director at Nashville Public Library. Anne Ugarte has joined Perseus Distribution and Ingram Academic Services as client relations manager.

Johanna Hynes has been promoted to manager, sales for Ingram Publisher Services and will continue to sell to independent bookstores in the Midwest sales territory. At Ingram Content Group, Robert Barnard has been promoted to senior manager of application development for the IT department.

Catherine Robinson has joined the Ingram Marketing team as product marketing manager, where she will manage the Ingram Wire and Ingram’s editorial newsletters. Robinson most recently served as a client relations manager for Ingram Publisher Services LLC.

In addition, Andrew McGarrity has been named director of digital solutions for Ingram’s Tennessee Book Company LLC, as part of its acquisition of Thrivist, the teaching and learning platform he founded. Derrick Greer has joined Ingram as a senior manager of customer success, also as part of the acquisition of Thrivist.

Quarto Iberoamericana Enters Sales and Distribution Agreements

The Quarto Group has entered two new sales and distribution agreements to sell titles from their new Spanish language imprint, Quarto Iberoamericana, Publishers Weekly reported.

These distributors will service markets not already covered by Quarto’s existing partner, Catapulta Editores: Editorial Gustavo Gili de Mexico will sell and distribute Quarto Iberoamericana titles to the Mexican Republic, while Independent Publishers Group (IPG) will sell and distribute to the North American market through its specialist Spanish language book division. Quarto Iberoamericana launches in the U.S. and Canada in October.

Linda Cannon Named Kristin Keith Sales Rep of the Year

Linda Cannon of Parson Weems has been named the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association’s inaugural Kristin Keith Sales Rep of the Year.

Cannon joined Parson Weems in 2003, becoming a partner in 2005 and a co-owner in 2014. Before that, she spent 18 years as a bookseller in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Kent, Ohio, and was a commission rep in the Midwest and Texas and a house rep in the San Francisco Bay Area. Beginning in 1989, she worked as a marketing manager for a software company in California and then as an operations manager at an Internet start-up company.

Last year, the William Helmuth Sales Rep of the Year award, created by NAIBA in 1987, was renamed the Kristin Keith Sales Rep of the Year award in honor of the late Kristin Keith, who won the award in 2013. The award honors a sales rep “who is the sort of person who does their homework all the time, is patient and tolerant of customers and colleagues, who makes mistakes from enthusiasm, then owns up to them.”

Cannon will be honored at the NAIBA Awards Banquet on October 7 at the Cherry Hill Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

Ken Michaels to Receive BISG’s Distinguished Service Award

The Book Industry Study Group (BISG) will award Macmillan Learning CEO Ken Michaels with BISG’s Distinguished Service Award on September 25 at the organization’s Annual Meeting of Members at the Harvard Club of New York.

A past chair of BISG’s board of directors, Michaels led the association while also overseeing operations at major trade and educational publishers.

Colson Whitehead Wins Arthur C. Clarke Award

Colson Whitehead has won the 2017 Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction for The Underground Railroad.

The prize, which is worth £2,017 ($2,640), is the U.K.’s most prestigious award for science fiction. Whitehead’s novel, which also received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction, was published by Fleet in the U.K. and by Doubleday in the U.S.

According to Arthur C. Clarke Award Chair of Judges Andrew M. Butler, The Underground Railroad is “a gripping account both of humanity’s inhumanity and the potential for resistance, underpinned by science fiction’s ability to make metaphor literal.”

RITA Award Winners Announced

The winners of the 2017 RITA Awards, presented by the Romance Writers of America (RWA), were announced as part of the 37th Annual RWA Conference in Orlando, Florida, on July 27.

The awards “recognize excellence in published romance novels and novellas,” according to the association.

See the full list of winners, chosen from up to 2,000 romance novels and novellas, on the RWA website.

Grace Talusan Wins Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing

Grace Talusan has won the 2017 Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing for her memoir The Body Papers, a story of trauma, illness, and immigration told through personal and official documentation. Restless Books, an independent publisher based in Brooklyn, founded the award to recognize emerging writers of sharp, culture-straddling writing that addresses identity in a global age.

Talusan, who immigrated to the U.S. from the Philippines as a child, teaches in the english department at The Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University and has published essays, longform journalism, fiction, and book reviews in numerous major publications. She was also the recipient of a U.S. Fulbright Fellowship to the Philippines.

The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing awards $10,000 and publication to a first-time, first-generation author. Restless Books will publish The Body Papers in fall 2018.