Revolving Door

Literary agent Al Zuckerman will no longer serve as chairman of Writers House, the major agency he founded in 1974.

Current Writers House president Amy Berkower will serve as the new chairman and Simon Lipskar will be the agency’s president. Zuckerman will maintain his list of authors, including: Ken Follett, Stephen Hawking, Michael Lewis and the estates of Hermann Hesse.

Here’s more about his career, from the release: “Under his guidance, Writers House has grown from a closet-like space on West 42nd Street in New York City to two Victorian buildings on West 26th Street erected for the Astor family in 1872, with offices also in London and San Diego. Its staff has grown from one to 43, eight of whom have been with the company for more than 25 years.”

The following three publishers have made some recent changes to their personnel staff: Milkweed Editions, Kensington Publishing Corp. and Abrams Books.

Milkweed Editions has hired Meredith Kessler as their new publicist. At Kensington, two editors have received promotions; Gary Goldstein has been named Executive Editor and Martin Biro has been named Assistant Editor.

At Abrams, the team has shifted to allow for one promotion and one new additional member. Eric Klopfer has been named editor. Michelle Montague makes the jump from Simon & Schuster; she will now serve as executive director of adult marketing and publicity.

Barnes & Noble has hired Michael P. Huseby as its new Chief Financial Officer. He joins the company tomorrow.

Since 2004, Huseby has served as CFO of Cablevision Systems Corporation. Barnes & Noble chief financial officer Joseph Lombardi resigned last October.

Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch had this statement: “Mike is a seasoned public company CFO and executive, has consistently built value at the companies he’s served, and recognizes the big opportunities in our strong retail and rapid growth digital businesses.”

Former Mediabistro editorial director Rebecca Wright has joined Bookish as executive editor.

Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA) and Simon & Schuster partnered with AOL Huffington Post Media Group to develop the new website dedicated to book discovery. The project has not officially launched yet.

In her new post, Wright will spearhead editorial content that helps users discover new books. Previously, Wright had served as director of editorial development & operations at The Daily Beast.

Publisher Jon Anderson announced several promotions at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division yesterday.

Lucille Rettino will serve as vice president and director of marketing. Matt Pantoliano has been named senior digital marketing manager. Both Elke Villa and Julie Christopher were promoted to associate director of marketing.

Chrissy Noh is now a senior marketing manager. Carolyn Swerdloff will work as the marketing manager. Sooji Kim joins the team as digital marketing coordinator.

Read more

Journalist Kathryn Schulz has been named book critic at New York Magazine.

Editor-in-chief Adam Moss had this statement in the release: ”Our readers, who had a taste of Kathryn’s work last year, can look forward to thoughtful works beyond the traditional book review, on literary subjects and big ideas that books put in motion.  She’s the kind of writer you want to read on anything, because her mind is so interesting.”

Schulz (pictured, via) recently won the National Book Critics Circle’s Nona Balakian Prize for Excellence in Reviewing. She has contributed to several publications including The New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, TIME magazine, The Nation, Foreign Policy,and the New York Times Book Review. In 2010 she published her book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. In 2011, she gave a TED talk “on being wrong.”

Kristina Holmes will start her own literary agency, The Holmes Agency.

Holmes plans to take on nonfiction clients exclusively. Her list will be open to several different genres, including health and wellness, business, psychology, spirituality, sex, relationships, environmental issues, science, nature, literary nonfiction and memoir.

Previously, Holmes was a partner literary agent and consultant at Ebeling & Associates Literary Agency for six years. Some of the authors she has worked with include Garret Kramer, David Steinman and Gregory Lang.

Emily Williams has left Publisher’s Marketplace to join Barnes & Noble as manager of international content and digital products for BN.com.

In her new role she will manage international content and digital content for Barnes & Noble’s e-commerce website. Williams served as digital content producer at Publisher’s Marketplace in 2011.

Prior to that she was a contributor to F+W Media‘s Digital Book World and before that she worked as a contributor to Publishing Perspectives. She also worked as a senior scout for Maria B. Campbell & Associates.

Literary agent Celeste Fine will jump to Sterling Lord Literistic. She starts January 30th.

Fine (pictured, via) plans to take on projects from expert and celebrity authors in the health, science, food, business, and lifestyle genres. In addition, she will manage foreign rights for the agency’s children’s and young adult list.

Prior to this move, Fine served as the senior vice president and subsidiary rights director at Folio Literary Management. She has worked with a number of major authors, including Courtney Love, Dean Koontz and Janet Evanovich.

After 30 years at the newspaper, movie critic and author J. Hoberman has been cut at the Village Voice.

Most recently, the critic published An Army of Phantoms: American Movies and the Making of the Cold War at New Press.

Daily Intel had a quote from Hoberman: “I would be disingenuous to say I hadn’t considered the possibility that this would happen to me eventually … I was shocked, but not surprised.” (Via Mediabistro Newsfeed)