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Bernie Sanders to Appear at BookExpo 2018

Senator Bernie Sanders will make a special appearance on the Main Stage at BookExpo 2018.

ReedPOP announced Wednesday that the 2016 Democratic presidential contender and independent Senator from Vermont will take the stage on Thursday, May 31, to discuss his forthcoming book, Where Do We Go From Here (Thomas Dunne Books, November 13, 2018), which is “about what he’s been doing to oppose the Trump agenda and strengthen the progressive movement and how we go forward as a nation.”

Sanders will join a lineup of previously announced authors at BookExpo including Jacqueline Woodson, Dave Eggers, Barbara Kingsolver, Trevor Noah, Yuyi Morales, Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, and Nicholas Sparks.

“An Evening with Senator Bernie Sanders” will be a separately ticketed event, and all attendees must be registered for BookExpo, to take place from May 30 to June 1 at the Javits Convention Center in New York City.

Jonathan Karp Named President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing

Jonathan Karp has been promoted to president and publisher of Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, effective immediately, the company announced Tuesday. 

Simon & Schuster’s New York-based adult trade publishing business includes Atria Books, Gallery Books, Scribner, Simon & Schuster, Touchstone, and their associated sub-imprints. Reporting to president and CEO Carolyn Reidy, Karp will also continue to serve as publisher of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint.

Karp joined S&S as executive vice president and publisher of the Simon & Schuster trade imprint in 2010. In 2012, he was promoted to president and publisher of the Simon & Schuster Publishing Group, including Free Press. Prior to that, he served as founding publisher and editor-in-chief of Twelve, an imprint of Hachette Book Group. Karp, a graduate of Brown University, began his career at Random House, where he served in a number of roles, including editor-in-chief.

HarperCollins Buys AMACOM Books

HarperCollins has acquired the trade book assets of AMACOM from the American Management Association International (AMA), the company announced, and will take over all frontlist and backlist publication, sales, distribution, and licensing of the more than 600 books in AMACOM’s catalog.

AMACOM, which primarily focuses on personal and professional growth and business leadership, is now a sub-imprint of the recently launched HarperCollins Leadership (HCL) imprint, run out of the company’s Nashville offices. Business development, marketing, and editorial for AMACOM will be led by Jeff James, vice president and publisher of HCL.

“Business, management, and leadership are key growth areas for HarperCollins internationally,” said Brian Murray, president and CEO of HarperCollins. “The purchase of AMACOM’s trade publishing will allow us to broaden our catalog of books with potential in emerging markets, from Asia to South America. It is a natural fit for our expanding publishing programs.”

Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Jennifer Egan Succeeds Andrew Solomon as PEN America President

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan has been named president of the newly unified PEN America, succeeding Andrew Solomon, the writer, journalist, and lecturer who has led the free speech organization for the past three years.

Egan will be the first president to oversee the newly unified PEN America and PEN Center USA. PEN America concluded its consolidation with the California-based organization when members ratified the national unification in a vote last week.

Egan has been a PEN America Trustee since 2013 and is the author of Manhattan Beach (Scribner), which was awarded the Carnegie Medal for fiction in February. Her novel A Visit From the Goon Squad (Anchor) won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

“The power and meaning of the written word are central to the complexities we face today — both as a nation, and globally,” said Egan. “To my mind, freedom of expression is a basic human right. I’m honored to uphold and act as a steward of this right, and of PEN America’s mission.”

Barnes & Noble to Open Five New Prototype Stores in 2018

Over the course of 2018, Barnes & Noble will open five new prototype stores featuring a smaller format and a new design, Good E-Reader, a tech website, reported.

The new stores will be about 14,000 square feet, roughly 12,000 square feet smaller than the current typical Barnes & Noble store. The first store will open in Hackensack, New Jersey, with additional sites to be determined. With this change, the company hopes to offer more quality books and better-quality merchandise, in addition to a typical B&N café.

“This right sized format will have a new look and merchandise focused on books and other categories that are more reflective of today’s business model,” said Barnes & Noble CEO Demos Parneros.

The company has disclosed that they have no plans to open up more B&N Kitchen locations in the future, Good E-Reader reported, as each bookstore with a kitchen did not have a notable effect on the number of books being sold.

Emma Watson Chooses Indie Next List Pick Heart Berries for “Our Shared Shelf” List

Actress and activist Emma Watson has selected Terese Mailhot’s memoir, Heart Berries (Counterpoint Press), a February 2018 Indie Next List pick, as her official March/April pick for her book club, Our Shared Shelf.

“I am quietly reveling in the profundity of Mailhot’s deliberate transgression in Heart Berries and its perfect results,” said Watson. “[T]he writing is so good it’s hard not to temporarily be distracted from the content or narrative by its brilliance...Perhaps, because this author so generously allows us to be her witness, we are somehow able to see ourselves more clearly and become better witnesses to ourselves.”

Heart Berries, which tells the story of Mailhot’s coming-of-age on a First Nation reservation on Canada’s Seabird Island, has received positive reviews from the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, Esquire, Entertainment Weekly, and Vulture, among other publications.

Western Writers of America Announces Go West Book Display Contest

In anticipation of the Western Writers of America’s (WWA) annual convention in June, the literary organization is challenging booksellers across the country to create a window or shelf display that highlights western authors and western musicians and their work. 

The WWA’s Go West Book Display Contest will give the bookstore or museum gift shop with the best display a prize of $500 as well as signed copies of titles by the 2018 winners of the WWA’s Spur Awards.

Booksellers are asked to e-mail a photo of their display to WWA marketing manager Chris Enss. In the body of the e-mail, include your name and e-mail address; bookstore name, address, and telephone number; and your bookstore’s social media pages.

WWA will select five finalists based on the creativity, originality, and design of the display from the selection of photos submitted between April 4 and June 1. The winning bookstore will be announced on Friday, June 3, and again at the WWA Spur Awards banquet on June 25.  

2018 PEN/Faulkner Finalists Announced

The PEN/Faulkner Foundation has announced the five finalists for the 2018 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. First awarded in 1981, the PEN/Faulkner Award is given annually to the authors of the year’s best works of fiction by living American citizens.

This year’s finalists are:

  • Hernan Diaz for In the Distance (Coffee House Press)
  • Samantha Hunt for The Dark Dark (FSG Originals)
  • Achy Obejas for The Tower of the Antilles (Akashic Books)
  • Joan Silber for Improvement (Counterpoint)
  • Jesmyn Ward for Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner)

The winner of the 38th annual PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction will be named on May 5 at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. Read more about the finalists here.

30th Annual Lambda Literary Award Finalists Announced

Lambda Literary, the nation’s oldest and largest literary arts organization advancing LGBTQ literature, has announced the finalists in 23 categories for the 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards, also known as the “Lammys.”

Finalists were chosen by 67 literary professionals amid nearly 1,000 submissions from over 300 publishers. The Lammys’ Visionary and Trustee Award honorees, the master of ceremonies, and celebrity presenters will be announced in April. Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Monday, June 4, at the NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, followed by an after-party at Le Poisson Rouge.

For more information and to buy tickets, visit Lambda’s website.

Elizabeth Strout Wins 2017 Story Prize

Elizabeth Strout’s Anything Is Possible (Random House) has won the 14th annual Story Prize, a $20,000 book prize awarded to the collection of short stories named best of the year by a distinguished jury.

Strout’s book was chosen from more than 70 short story collections published in 2017. This year’s other finalists were Daniel Alarcón for The King Is Always Above the People (Riverhead Books) and Ottessa Moshfegh for Homesick for Another World (Penguin Press); each runner-up received $5,000.

All three authors read from and discussed their work at the awards ceremony on Wednesday, February 28, at the New School in New York City.