BTW News Briefs

Rakuten, Walmart Partner for eReader, eBook, Audiobook Sales

In a new partnership between Wal-Mart Stores and Rakuten Kobo Inc., Walmart will begin selling eBooks and audiobooks, as well as offering Rakuten Kobo eReaders, in Walmart stores and online at Walmart.com in the United States starting later this year.

Kobo will ship eReaders already affiliated with Walmart to Walmart stores.

Kobo eReaders will continue to be sold through ABA member booksellers and on Kobo.com. To have their device affiliated with an independent bookstore, customers will need to purchase their eReader from an independent bookseller, or purchase an eReader from Kobo.com and follow the Kobo links on a participating bookstore’s website.

All eBook content will be accessible through a Walmart/Kobo co-branded app available on all iOS and Android devices, as a desktop app, and on Kobo eReaders. Walmart will also sell digital book cards in stores.

Booksellers interested in stocking Kobo eReaders should contact Rakuten Global Country Marketing Manager Natalie Jefferson.

Kwame Alexander to Start Versify Imprint at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Author Kwame Alexander is launching his own imprint, Versify, at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers in the spring of 2019, the New York Times reported.

Versify will publish “risky, unconventional books” such as Alexander’s debut, The Crossover, which HMH published in 2014. Alexander’s hip-hop-influenced YA novel about high school basketball stars who are twin brothers was initially rejected by 22 publishers but went on to become a critical and commercial smash.

The imprint’s inaugural list will include White Rose by Kip Wilson, a YA Holocaust novel in verse; Vamos!/Let’s Go!, the first installment in illustrator Raul Gonzalez’s new bilingual picture book series; and This Is For Us, a picture book that looks at African-American history through sports and culture, with a poem by Alexander and illustrations by Kadir Nelson.

Alexander told the Times he’s especially interested in books that incorporate poetry as well as works in translation, and said he sees launching Versify as a way that he can use his position to promote newer writers.

“I see a lot more publishers being in tune to what’s happening outside their communities, and you have a lot more writers of color having an opportunity to get their voices heard,” he said. “There is an opportunity with this imprint for me to do that on a mass scale.”

Judith Curr, Founder of Simon & Schuster’s Atria Imprint, Leaves Company

Judith Curr, president and publisher of Simon & Schuster’s Atria Publishing Group, is leaving her position at the company after 19 years, effective immediately, The Bookseller reported Tuesday.

According to S&S, company executives Peter Borland and Suzanne Donahue will oversee Atria while the search for a replacement is conducted.

Curr joined S&S in 1999 as president and publisher of Pocket Books and became the founding publisher of Atria Books in 2002; she has been in her current job since 2012. At Atria, Curr worked with authors like Isabel Allende and Michael Mosley and also published the international self-help bestseller The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Since its founding, Atria has also grown to encompass a number of other S&S imprints, including 37 Ink, Emily Bestler Books, Marble Arch Press, Enliven, and Strebor Books.

Staff Changes Announced at Penguin Random House

Penguin Random House has announced a number of staff changes and promotions, Publishers Lunch reported.

Isabella Biedenharn joins PRH from Entertainment Weekly, where she was a book section editor, as a senior publicist. Christine Mykityshyn has been promoted to publicity manager and Sophie Vershbow to senior social media manager, and Emily Isayeff and Dhara Parikh have been promoted to senior publicist and publicist, respectively.

In addition, Katie Darcy has been promoted to publicist for special events, and Melissa Sanford and Mary Moates have each been promoted to associate publicist. Catherine Mikula is leaving the publicity department to take a new job as a lecture agent with the Random House Speakers Bureau.

Staff Changes Announced at Macmillan

Macmillan has announced staff changes and promotions at a number of its children’s imprints, Publishers Weekly reported.

At Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Liz Dresner has been promoted to associate art director; Rebecca Syracuse has been promoted to associate designer; and Celeste Cass is now assistant production manager.

Grace Kendall has been promoted to senior editor and Nicholas Henderson has been named assistant editor at FSG Books for Young Readers. Emily Feinberg has been promoted to editor and Megan Abbate is now assistant editor at Roaring Brook Press.

At Feiwel & Friends, Emily Settle has been promoted to assistant editor to the publisher. At First Second Books, Calista Brill has been named editorial director; Kiara Valdez is now an ​assistant editor; and Gina Gagliano has been promoted to associate director of marketing and publicity.

Mary Ghikas Named ALA Executive Director Through January 2020

The executive board of the American Library Association (ALA) has appointed Mary Ghikas as the association’s executive director through January 2020, effective immediately, American Libraries, ALA’s signature publication, reported.

Ghikas, who has been with the ALA since 1995, had been serving as interim executive director since August 1, 2017, following Keith Fiels’ retirement. Prior to that, she served as ALA’s senior associate executive director of member programs and services.

The search for a new executive director will resume in spring 2019 once the position’s requirements have been finalized, according to the ALA. The board will name a new executive director after its October 2019 meeting, and he or she will begin work in midwinter 2020. At that time, Ghikas will remain on the board through June to support the transition process, according to ALA.

PEN America Announces 2018 Literary Awards Finalists

PEN America has announced the finalists for the 2018 Literary Awards, which recognize the best literature and translation of today, with nominees spanning a multitude of genres and continents.

For the first time, finalists for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction were all women, including Jenny Zhang for Sour Heart (Lenny) and two authors of 2017 Indie Next List number-one picks: Carmen Maria Machado for Her Body and Other Parties: Stories (Graywolf Press) and Emily Fridlund for History of Wolves (Grove Atlantic).

Also announced were the finalists for the $75,000 PEN/Jean Stein Award for book of the year, which was established last year by the late author and oral historian. They included White Tears by Hari Kunzru (Alfred A. Knopf), We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy by Ta-Nehisi Coates (One World), and Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News by Kevin Young (Graywolf Press).

Also on the list of finalists is iconic sci-fi author Ursula K. Le Guin, who died last week, for No Time to Spare, which was shortlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay.

The winners will be revealed at the February 20 ceremony at the NYU Skirball Center in New York. See the full shortlists here.

Helen Dunmore Wins Posthumous Costa Book of the Year Prize

The 2018 Costa Book Awards’ Book of the Year prize has been awarded to the late poet Helen Dunmore for her poetry collection Inside the Wave (Bloodaxe Books).

The Costa Awards honor some of the best books of the year written by authors based in the U.K. and Ireland. Inside the Wave had been nominated for poetry, one of the prize’s five categories (along with novel, first novel, biography, and children’s) that make up the Book of the Year pool; Dunmore was named the winner of the £30,000 (about $40,795) prize at a ceremony in London on January 30.

Dunmore, who died last June, was a poet, novelist, short story, and children’s writer. She published three books of short stories and 15 novels and was the recipient of numerous awards for her poetry including the Cardiff International Poetry Prize.

Contest judges called Dunmore’s last work “an astonishing set of poems – a final, great achievement.”