BTW News Briefs

Here’s what’s happening this week in the book industry:

Reed Exhibitions has announced that it will sponsor the 2019 Children’s Book Week (CBW) with a donation to Every Child a Reader. In this new role, the organizer of BookExpo and BookCon will provide funding for 125,000 CBW posters, which will be distributed to children at schools, bookstores, and libraries as part of the centennial event.

Books & Books founder Mitchell Kaplan spoke with author and Indies First spokesperson Jason Reynolds on a recent episode of his podcast, The Literary Life With Mitchell Kaplan.

Gina Centrello, whom Penguin Random House U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh recently named to lead the newly combined Random House and Crown Publishing Group, has released details about the new operating structure. Centrello noted that additional news about plans for the new united group, to be known as Random House, will be announced in the New Year.

The first seven titles to be published by a new partnership between Chronicle Books and the LEGO Group will be released in spring 2020. The titles, inspired by LEGO toys, bricks, and figures, will also include related merchandise such as puzzles, postcards, journals, and erasers.

Effective January 1, 2019, Eurospan Group and a selection of its academic and professional publishing clients will be represented by Casemate Group for sales, marketing, and distribution in North America.

Elsevier has sold the company’s Linn, Michigan, fulfillment and distribution center to LSC Communications. As part of this change, all Elsevier employees working there will be transferred to LSC in 2019.

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has announced that Gwydion Suilebhan will join the foundation as its new executive director. Currently, he is the director of brand and marketing for Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company. The writer and arts advocate will join the staff on January 15.

IDW Publishing announced that former chief creative officer and editor-in-chief Chris Ryall would return to the independent comics house as president, publisher, and chief creative officer. President and publisher of 10 years Greg Goldstein is stepping down from his position.

Nation Books, a joint project of Hachette and the Nation Institute, will be renamed Bold Type Books starting January 1. This change corresponds with the Nation Institute’s decision to change its name to Type Media Center.

Berkley, an imprint of Penguin Random House, is promoting Fareeda Bullert to senior marketing manager.

Jaime Noven has joined Celadon as marketing manager. Prior to her position at Celadon, she worked in marketing and publicity at Princeton Architectural Press, The Monacelli Press, and the Hal Leonard Performing Arts Publishing Group.

PEN America has released the longlists for its 2019 Literary Awards, which feature 90 titles nominated in categories including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation. Winners of these prizes and more will be announced at a ceremony on February 26, 2019, in New York City. 

Five of the seven finalists for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Award for Best First Book were chosen by booksellers as Indie Next list number-one titles in 2018: A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley (Graywolf Press); The Line Becomes A River by Francisco Cantú (Riverhead); The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon (Riverhead); There There by Tommy Orange (Knopf); and Educated by Tara Westover (Random House).

Tommy Orange, author of There There (Knopf), was named the winner of the 2018 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. Orange will receive $10,000.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum has announced that The Other American Moderns: Matsura, Ishigaki, Noda, Hayakawa by art historian ShiPu Wang (Penn State University Press) is the winner of the 2018 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Book Prize.

Patricia Lockwood’s comic memoir Priestdaddy (Riverhead) has won the 2018 Thurber Prize for American Humor. Named after author James Thurber, the $5,000 prize is made possible by Thurber House, the Greater Columbus Arts Council, and The Columbus Foundation.

Mexican American author Luis Alberto Urrea will receive the 2019 Jack D. Rittenhouse Lifetime Achievement Award from PubWest. His 2004 nonfiction book The Devil’s Highway was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and his newest novel is The House of Broken Angels (Little, Brown).

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