Editors

Authors Ann Van­der­Meer and Jeff Van­der­Meer just opened Weird Fiction Review, an online journal dedicated to “an ongo­ing explo­ration into all facets of the weird, in all of its many forms.” In August, Ann VanderMeer and her staff were cut at Weird Tales.

Weird Fiction Review launched with a Neil Gaiman interview about weird fiction, an episode of the “Reading The Weird” webcomic by Leah Thomas, a translation of Thomas Owen‘s “Kavar the Rat,” and The art of New Orleans gallery by artist Myrtle Von Damitz III. While they don’t have the same editors, the journal will maintain “a sym­bi­otic rela­tion­ship” with S.T. Joshi’s print jour­nal, The Weird Fic­tion Review.

Here’s more about the site: “[It has] a kind of non-denominational approach that appre­ci­ates Love­craft but also Kafka, Angela Carter and Clark Ash­ton Smith, Shirley Jack­son and Fritz Leiber — along with the next gen­er­a­tion of weird writ­ers and inter­na­tional weird. The empha­sis will be on non­fic­tion on writ­ers and par­tic­u­lar books, but we will also run fea­tures on weird art, music, and film, as well as occa­sional fiction. Angela Slat­ter cur­rently serves as our man­ag­ing edi­tor, Luis Rodrigues cre­ated the site, and Larry Nolen and Paul Smith will be among the reg­u­lar colum­nists.”

Ethan Nosowsky has been named the new editorial director at McSweeney’s. He currently serves as editor-at-large at Graywolf Press and will begin in his new position starting Monday, October 31st.

As editorial director, Nosowsky will acquire and edit manuscripts in both the fiction and nonfiction genres. He will also manage the development of McSweeney’s other publications.

Nosowsky gave this statement in the release: “In little more than a decade McSweeney’s has established a unique place for itself in the national publishing landscape. I’m delighted to be given a chance to contribute to such an innovative publishing program, and to be able to do so in my hometown is icing on the cake.”

Barbara Jones has been named executive editor at Henry Holt & Company. She will report to editor-in-chief Gillian Blake.

Here’s more from the release: “[Jones] was most recently editorial director of Hyperion Books and Voice, where she acquired Jane Lynch‘s Happy Accidents and edited the forthcoming novels Arcadia by Lauren Groff and The Red Book by Deborah Copaken Kogan, as well as the city of Houston’s current selection for the ‘One City, One Book’ program, One Amazing Thing by Chitra Divakaruni.”

Jones (pictured) will acquire fiction, memoir and narrative nonfiction projects. She began her career in magazine publishing with editorial positions at Rodale, Inc. and Meredith Corporation. She started working in book publishing at Disney’s publishing division.

According to Chase’s Calendar, September is “Be Kind To Editors & Writers Month.”

Which editors and writers would you like to celebrate?

This GalleyCat contributor would like to salute the editors behind some of the world’s most beloved YA titles, including editorial director David Levithan (The Hunger Games trilogy), publisher Megan Tingley (The Twilight Saga) and publishing consultant Barbara Marcus (The Harry Potter series).

Karen Kosztolnyik has been named executive editor at Simon & Schuster’s Gallery Books imprint. Kosztolnyik will report to editor-in-chief Jen Bergstrom and acquire commercial fiction, narrative nonfiction and memoir genres.

Kosztolnyik started her publishing career at John Wiley & Sons and then spent six years at Harlequin/Silhouette. She has served as an editor at Grand Central Publishing for nearly a decade.

Here’s more from the release: “During her distinguished tenure, Karen edited a wide variety of New York Times bestsellers, including the phenomenally successful Dewey by Vicki Myron & Bret Witter, which hit #1 and was on the list for 30 weeks, Silent Scream by Karen Rose, Lethally Blond by Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief Kate White, and On the Line by Serena Williams.”

This morning author and editor Tina Brown sent an email about rising traffic at Newsweek and The Daily Beast.

Last November, The Daily Beast entered a “new media marriage” with Newsweek, putting Brown at the helm of both publications. We’ve included the text of her email below…

I wanted to extend huge congratulations to all of you on our extraordinary traffic milestone last month. It’s hard to imagine that in less than three years since the launch of The Daily Beast, traffic now exceeds 10.3 million monthly unique visitors and 67.6 million pageviews, half of it from visitors who bookmark the site and none of it paid—an amazing indication of reader loyalty and the power of our combined brands.

Read more

The online culture magazine Slate has ended books editor Ann Hulbert‘s contract, according to a report from New York Magazine.

Hulbert had been with the online magazine for many years. Follow this link to explore Slate’s coverage of books. Hulbert’s oldest Slate byline archived on the site dates back to 1996: “Miss Unmannerly.” You can read all her Slate work at this link.

Here’s more from the post: “Intel has learned that Slate will be killing freelance wine writer Mike Steinberger’s long-running column. Non-staff book editor Ann Hulbert’s contract has also been canceled.” (Via Publishers Lunch)

Gillian Blake been named editor in chief of Macmillan’s Henry Holt and Company. She will report to publisher Stephen Rubin.

Blake joined Henry Holt in 2009 as executive editor, months after HarperCollins shuttered the division in a massive restructuring.

Here’s more from the release: “She recently edited the runaway bestseller STORIES I ONLY TELL MY FRIENDS by Rob Lowe. Prior to joining Holt, she held positions at Scribner, Bloomsbury and Harper Collins publishers where she edited best-selling authors Harold Bloom, Robert Sullivan, Peggy Orenstein, Steven Johnson, Russell Brand and award-winning author Adrian LeBlanc.”

Cal Morgan has been named senior vice president and publisher of HarperCollins’ It Books imprint.

Morgan will also oversee the Harper Design imprint team and continue to serve as editorial director of the Harper Perennial original paperback program. He will report to Michael Morrison.

You can follow Morgan on Twitter. He began his career at Macmillan’s St. Martin’s Press. After joining HarperCollins in 1999, he worked at several imprints including ReganBooks, Harper and William Morrow. He has worked with Neil Strauss, Lauren Redniss, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kelly Oxford, Stanley Crouch, Arianna Huffington, Michael Moore and Ralph Nader.

Julia Cheiffetz has been named editorial director of Amazon’s brand new New York City-based publishing imprint. She will start on August 1st.

In a memo to staff, publisher Larry Kirshbaum explained the hire: “Julia’s sharp editorial sensibility and devotion to her authors, combined with her passion for new technology, makes her the perfect choice. She offers a unique blend of an entrepreneurial mind-set built upon a strong belief in the bedrock values of traditional literary and commercial publishing.”

Previously, Cheiffetz worked as a senior editor at Harper, working on titles that included 5th Avenue, 5 AM by Sam Wasson, The Dressmaker of Khair Khana by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, and How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish. She spent six years at Random House and also worked at HarperStudio.