Eastern Pennsylvania Archive
Look Here for Items of the Past
e-List Updates
Marilyn Hershey, the Regional Advisor for SCBWI Eastern PA, periodically sends out news and updates about the children's publishing industry. Here you'll find an archive of the e-List Updates.
Posted 01/09/12
Editor and Agent Updates
Literary agent Emmanuelle Morgen will join Stonesong on January 5, representing adult and children's fiction, including women's fiction and romance, historical fiction, and young adult fiction, and nonfiction in the areas of psychology, pop science, self-help, and memoir. Morgen has been at Judith Ehrlich Literary Management.
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Bree Ogden has joined D4EO Literary Agency. She has been an associate literary agent at Martin Literary Management for nearly 2 years, where she concentrated on YA, middle mrade and graphic novels.
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At Simon & Schuster Children's imprints Simon Spotlight & Simon Scribbles, Siobhan Ciminera has been promoted to executive editor; Lisa Rao moves up to editor; and Beth Barton has been promoted to associate editor.
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Leila Sales has been promoted to associate editor at Viking Children's Books. She began her career in the marketing department at Penguin Books for Young Readers, and was most recently assistant editor at Viking. She is also the author of two books for young adults.
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Joy Peskin has been named vp, editorial director of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Children's, reporting to Simon Boughton. Previously she was associate publisher at Viking Children's.
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Posted 1/22/10
* Movable Type Literary Group has hired Brianne Mulligan as an associate agent, focusing on high-concept YA and middle grade fiction, along with select commercial adult properties. She was most recently an associate editor at Razorbill.
* Random House to Close Operations at Tricycle Press Imprint Random House Children's Books is closing the Berkeley-based Tricycle Press imprint, acquired as part of Ten Speed Press, on January 31, 2011. They will continue to "sell and support" the Tricycle backlist and will decide soon what label forthcoming titles will be published under.
* Publisher Nicole Geiger and the four editorial staff members will leave the company as result. Tricycle marketing and publicity manager Laura Mancuso will remain as part of Random House Children's.
Posted 11/11/10
* Abrams has made some changes to its ComicArts division, according to Publishers Marketplace. This division published books for kids and adults in comics form, plus celebrations and histories of the form.
* Susan Van Metre is now Senior Vice President and Publisher over ComicArts, Abrams Children's, and Amulet Books.
* Charles Kochman is now Editorial Director of ComicArts, reporting to Van Metre. He acquired DIARY OF A WIMPY KID at New York Comic-Con a few years back.
Chad Beckerman is now the company's Creative Director, overseeing design for all Abrams children's books and ComicArts. He celebrates here: http://cwdesigner.blogspot.com/2010/11/holy-pickles-i-am-now-creative-director.html
Posted 11/3/10
At Knopf Children's, Nancy Siscoe has been promoted to senior executive editor, relinquishing her associate publishing
director responsibilities and focusing on editing. With the departure of Joan Slattery, Siscoe will take on several of her authors, including Philip Pullman, as well as Cynthia Voigt, Shelley Pearsall, R. A. Nelson, and Kathleen O'Dell. Erin Clarke has been promoted to executive editor, and Katherine Harrison moves up to assistant editor.
Posted 10/6/10
Harold Underdown's Purple Crayon website and a member both report that Tim Travaglini left Putnam at the start of this month. He was a Senior Editor there, and the firm just published the third volume of the MONSTER BLOOD TATTOO / FOUNDLING'S TALE series he championed.
Posted 9/15/10
Kevin Lewis is joining Disney-Hyperion Books as executive editor, acquiring and editing picture books as well as middle grade and YA novels. He was editorial director at the Simon & Schuster Children's imprint.
Posted 7/9/10
* At Harper Children's, Farrin Jacobs has been promoted to editorial director, continuing to report to Elise Howard. She has been heading the teen fiction series team in the fiction publishing group. Erica Sussman has been promoted to senior editor, continuing to report to Tara Weikum.
* At Scholastic's trade publishing division, Lisa Sandell has been promoted to executive editor, Scholastic Press.
Posted 7/7/10
* Publishers Marketplace reports that Houghton Mifflin Harcourt has hired Reka Simonsen as Executive Editor. She will start in August and report to Editorial Director Jeannette Larson. Simonson was a Senior Editor at Holt.
* Here's a 2004 interview with Simonsen by Robin Friedman:
http://www.robinfriedman.com/interviews/RekaSimonsen.html
"...my favorite things to work on are what I call upper middle-grade novels - books for well-read, bright kids that are 11-13 or so but are not necessarily interested in reading about YA topics."
Posted 6/29/10
* Nancy Conescu will join Dutton Children's as executive editor on July 6, reporting to president Lauri Hornik. Most recently she was senior editor at Little, Brown Children's.
* Catherine Onder has joined Disney-Hyperion as senior editor. She has been an editor at Harper Children's for the past seven years.
* Kids Can Press, the Toronto children's-book publisher, is moving into a building with other parts of its parent company, Corus.
The new address as of June 24, 2010 is:
Kids Can Press
Corus Quay
25 Dockside Drive
Toronto, ON M5A 0B5
CANADA
Posted 5/12/2010
Publishers Marketplace passed on the news of promotions in the Random House Children's division. Unfortunately, the house isn't open to unsolicited submissions, so this information has limited utility.
* Geof Smith is now an Executive Editor. He's written a number of licensed titles (e.g., SPONGEBOB), and I found his abandoned blog: http://connoissewer.com.
* Christy Webster is now an Associate Editor. She's originally from Maine. Interviews with her: www.rmcscbwi.org/Interview__Christy_Webster.pdf (download). "When I dive into my submission pile, I’m hoping to find:
- A beginning reader that’s different from anything we already have in our backlist.
- An early chapter book with multiple hooks, strong characters, and a good mix of dialogue and action in each chapter.
- A picture book that’s really for kids, not just their parents or teachers, with lots of illustration potential.
- A middle grade or YA novel with characters and setting so real I feel like I’m there." http://faeriality.blogspot.com/2009/12/marvelous-marketer-christy-webster.html.
* Chelsea Eberly is now an Assistant Editor. She was assistant to the editor Jim Thomas.
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Scholastic has hired Nick Eliopulos away from Random House, giving him
the title of Editor. Here's a 2007 interview with Eliopulos:
www.guidetoliteraryagents.com/blog/Editor+Interview+Nick+Eliopulos+Of+Random+House+Childrens.aspx
"Much of what I read is slow to get to the actual plot. That's OK in a draft; it (will help) if there's some kind of synopsis so that I know what to expect. But voice and character should be front and center from the start."
Eliopulos is also a comics creator: http://prismcomics.org/profile.php?id=1043
He opens up more in this author interview: http://bradfordnovels.blogspot.com/2009/02/awesome-authors-nick-eliopulos.html and maintained this blog--for a while: http://interrobanger.blogspot.com/
Posted 5/7/2010
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY reports that later this month Josalyn Moran will join Albert Whitman & Company as VP of Publishing, "leading the editorial team."
Moran will leave the children's division at Chronicle Books, its third head in five years. Before that, she was VP of Children's Books at Barnes & Noble.
Posted 5/2/2010
Publishers Marketplace reports:
"Dan Ehrenhaft has joined Harper Children's fiction team as director of intellectual property development, developing and commissioning original projects primarily for the teen and tween market in both print as well as emerging digital formats."
Okay, that's a pretty strong indication that Harper and Ehrenraft want to do something outside the usual model of print publishing.
Ehrenhaft came from Sourcebooks, where as Senior Editor he launched the teen imprint Sourcebooks Fire. Before that he was at Alloy Entertainment. And he also writes his own YA novels: www.danielehrenhaft.com/index.html
Interviews when he was pushing Sourcebooks Fire:
georgiamcbridebooks.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/dan-ehrenhaft-acquisitions-editor-for-sourcebooks-fire/
weloveya.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/interview-sourcebook-ya-editor-daniel-ehrenhaft/
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Publishers Marketplace has announced several promotions at Simon & Schuster:
* Alexandra Penfold to Editor.
* Julia Maguire, Navah Wolfe, and Lydia Frost to Assistant Editors at the main S&S imprint.
* Kimberly Boyer to Assistant Editor at Little Simon.
* Jessica Echeverria to Assistant Editor at Simon Spotlight.
* Cara Petrus to Associate Art Director.
* Michael McCartney and Nick Sciacca to Senior Designers.
The Assistant Editor level is usually where people start to have expectations of acquiring a certain number of titles.