Trade News from Publishers Lunch

March Wins Four Awards at ALA

The American Library Association presented their annual book awards at their mid-winter meeting in Atlanta. First came the naming of the Carnegie Medalists on Sunday night, Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad and Matthew Desmond's Evicted (the two consensus fiction and nonfiction books of the year in our annual aggregation as well).

On Monday morning, at the Youth Media Awards ceremony, the National Book Award-winning graphic novel March: Book Three, written by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, illustrated by Nate Powell (Top Shelf Productions/IDW) won four awards -- the Michael L. Printz Award for young adult literature, the Excellence in Nonfiction award, the Coretta Scott King Book Award, and the Sibert Medal for distinguished informational book. Author Sarah Dessen was given the Margaret A. Edwards Award for "significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature."

The Newbery Medal went to The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill (Algonquin Children's) and the Caldecott Medal went to Radiant Child: The Story of Young Artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, illustrated and written by Javaka Steptoe (Little, Brown Children's), which also won the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award.

Newbery Honor Books
Freedom over me, Ashley Bryan
The Inquisitor's Tale, Adam Gidwitz
Wolf Hollow, lauren wolk

Caldecott Honor Books
Leave Me Alone!, Vera Brosgol
Freedom in Congo Square, written by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Du Iz Tak?, Carson Ellis
They All Saw A Cat, Brendan Wenzel

The complete award winners are listed in this press release.

People: Ball Appointed SVP, Publisher of Putnam Dutton Berkley

Following the announced departure of Dutton publisher Ben Sevier to Grand Central, Penguin Publishing Group president Madeline McIntosh told staff today that deputy publisher Christine Ball is being promoted to senior vice president, publisher, Putnam Dutton Berkley, reporting to Ivan Held. Ball "will now work even more actively and directly with Ivan and the imprint editorial teams under him to shape the lists and the editorial strategy as a whole," while continuing to oversee the marketing and publicity teams for all three imprints and lead efforts with the sales department. But Putnam editorial director Sally Kim, Berkley editor-in-chief Claire Zion, and associate publisher, paperbacks Ben Lee will continue to report to Held. New senior editorial leadership for Dutton will be announced "in the coming weeks."

McIntosh explained in her memo that making Ball a direct replacement for Sevier at Dutton would have been the "easy, natural choice," but "moving her out of Putnam and Berkley would have been a loss for them and for the group." Further, McIntosh said she and Held "have had a chance to take stock of how far the imprints have come and think about the opportunities for future growth. One truth we have come back to again and again is how many of the successes of these last two years would have been impossible without Christine’s leadership, publishing acuity, and extraordinary hard work on behalf of all three imprints. I also have noted how much the group has benefited from the strong and complementary partnership between Ivan and Christine." The imprints will continue to consider submissions and make acquisitions independently of each other.

In other personnel news, Andrea Dewerd has been promoted to assistant director, marketing for the Random House, Spiegel & Grau, and One World imprints.

Lenny Allen has joined Bloomsbury Digital Resources as global sales and marketing director. He was formerly director, international accounts at Oxford University Press.

Ingram Content Group announced a number of new promotions across various group. Caitlin Churchill has been appointed to the newly created position of business development manager, Aerio. At Lightning Source, Ed Spade moves up to senior manager, general sales, California, while Camille Watts has been promoted to manager, content services, general sales. And at Ingram Publisher Services, Bonnie Marie Dailey has been named client implementation manager, while Janine Cook moves up to senior key account sales manager, working out of IPS' UK office in Milton Keynes.

In Canada, over 35 literary agents have come together to create the Professional Association of Canadian Literary Agents (PACLA). Samantha Haywood serves as president, with Jackie Kaiser, Hilary McMahon and Marilyn Biderman as officers and executive committee members. The organization says, "We intend to work closely not only with book publishers but also with federal and provincial governments, prize granting organizations, writers associations, booksellers, literary festivals, review media, and educational institutions." They have established a Code of Practice for members and "will provide a forum for professional development for agents at all stages of their careers." Also, "to start, PACLA will add our Canadian voice to the global Fair Contract Initiative. We will also meet with government representatives to ensure that a greater number of authors have a stronger voice in policy and legislation that has an impact on the lives of creative artists and on the health of the book publishing sector. "