Roxana Robinson Elected New Authors Guild President

Shelf Awareness

Roxana Robinson and Scott Turow at the 2014 annual meeting. credit: Luis Garcia

Roxana Robinson was elected president of the Authors Guild at the organization's annual meeting, replacing Scott Turow, who had held the position for the past four years. The organization also announced that Judy Blume, Richard Russo and James Shapiro are now co-vice-presidents and C.J. Lyons has joined the executive council.

"American writing is alive and well," said Turow. "There is no question about the vitality of our literary community or the vitality of the literary impulse in the United States. There will always be authors, there will always books. We need to continue the struggle in order to protect writing as a livelihood."

After her election, Robinson observed: "As writers, we are living in very interesting times. The challenges are huge, and I am thrilled to be a part of it all. We're going to move ahead, we're going to extend our membership, we're going to continue to offer practical help and advice and a sense of community to our writers, and we're going to continue to support the craft of writing."

Guild members re-elected Peter Petre treasurer and Pat Cummings secretary, and re-elected council members Peter Gethers, Annette Gordon-Reed, Nicholas Lemann, Douglas Preston, Michelle Richmond, Cathleen Schine and Monique Truong.