BEA Announces Editor & Bookseller Buzz Forum Panelists

BookExpo America (BEA) has announced the panelists for this year's "Editor & Bookseller Buzz Forum." The Buzz Forum allows top publishing executives to present the one or two upcoming books they feel most passionate about to a gathering of booksellers, book reviewers, and other media and industry professionals.

A new panel will also be introduced, called "Generation Next," featuring some of the editors singled out by Publishers Weekly (PW) as "Young Turks." The up and coming "Young Turks" have been tapped by PW as among the many in publishing who are deemed worth watching and listening to in the current year. The forum will take place on Thursday, June 2 at 4:30 p.m., Room 1E15-16 at New York's Jacob Javits Convention Center. Generation Next will take place on Friday, June 3 at 2:00 p.m., Room 1E4.

The panelists for this year's Buzz Forum include:

• David Hirshey, senior vice president and executive editor, HarperCollins;
• Will Schwalbe, vice president and editor-in-chief, Hyperion;
• Jonathan Karp, senior vice president and editor-in-chief, Random House;
• Nan Graham, editor-in-chief, Scribner;
• Paul Slovak, vice president and associate publisher, Viking; and
• Jamie Raab, senior vice president and publisher, Warner Books.

The panelists for Generation Next include:

• Liz Nagle, associate editor, Little, Brown & Co.;
• Chris Jackson, editor, Crown Publishers;
• Lorin Stein, editor, Farrar, Straus & Giroux;
• Gillian Blake, executive editor, Bloomsbury; and
• Kate Travers, editor, HarperCollins.

"As a newcomer to the business, I can say with certainty that the role of the editor in publishing is fascinating even to the outsider," noted Chris McCabe, the new vice president and show manager for BEA, in a press statement. "As a leading book convention, it makes sense that we should expand our programs to focus as much as possible on this side of the business, while trying to demystify it at the same time. This is an area that we will look to grow even more in the future."

The executives for the Buzz Forum will talk for 10 minutes each and are encouraged to focus their attention on just one or two books they might consider "sleeper" titles. Sara Nelson, editor-in-chief of PW, will chair the panel. Steve Zeitchik, news editor of PW, will moderate the Generation Next panel. Both panels are open to all BEA badge participants at no charge.

For more information about BEA programming and registration, click here.