Mystery publisher and bookseller Otto Penzler and Pegasus Books are jointly creating Scarlet, a company that will focus on publishing psychological suspense "with primarily female readers in mind." Scarlet will publish six to eight novels its first year, starting in Winter 2020, and will be distributed by Norton, which distributes both Penzler Publishing and Pegasus Books.

Luisa Smith, buying director of Book Passage, Corte Madera and San Francisco, Calif., will be editor-in-chief (while continuing at Book Passage). Nat Sobel of Sobel-Weber Associates, the agent for many authors in this category, will act as consultant. Jessica Case of Pegasus Books will work closely with the other Scarlet personnel in acquisition, marketing and publicity.

Luisa Smith

Smith commented: "Suspenseful stories, unique perspectives, and quality writing all play important roles in my favorite books and we hope to find these elements in every Scarlet title. After years of promoting the books I love within the bookstore, I now look forward to discovering new voices that my fellow booksellers will enjoy sharing with their favorite mystery readers."

"Psychological suspense is an exciting sub-genre of mystery fiction that has enjoyed a long history of success, both critically and commercially," Penzler said. "The opportunity to work with Claiborne Hancock and Jessica Case of Pegasus Books was too enticing to pass up. When Luisa Smith agreed to join us in this joint venture, I was immediately convinced that we had a great team that would prove to be successful."

"Over the past two decades, Otto has taught me more about crime fiction than I could ever imagine so it's especially exciting now to partner on Scarlet," Claiborne Hancock of Pegasus Books commented. "Psychological suspense that features complex women--whether they are the protagonist or the villain or somewhere in between--is one of the most dynamic categories in popular fiction right now, so the time is right for an imprint dedicated to this genre."

Jessica Case said, "This genre in particular allows for so much room to explore complex characters in depth while crafting tight and compelling plots. Readers who gravitate toward this genre are always looking for new ways to be challenged and surprised."

The Writer's Block will move from its current location this spring.

The new Lucy arts, literacy and cultural center in Las Vegas, Nev., is the new location of the Writer's Block bookstore and will feature a café and dedicated event space, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. The Writer's Block has been closed since September but is slated to open in the new, larger space in early spring "after a few unforeseen (but unsurprising) delays," the store said on its website.

The Lucy is owned by philanthropist and arts patron Beverly Rogers, who is also co-owner, with Drew Cohen and Scott Seeley, of the Writer's Block. The Lucy includes "a dozen loft-style residences, three of which are allotted for artists and writers who are working to make lasting impacts on the Las Vegas Valley," the Review-Journal wrote. The facility will also have a large outdoor venue that "will be home to various events in collaboration with The Believer Festival, among others."

The new bookstore space will "include a 60-person-capacity venue for hosting events that the store has developed over almost four years at its former location," the paper wrote. The store will also "retain its artificial bird sanctuary theme." The Baron, the Writer's Block resident rabbit, is also making the move to the new location.

"It's going to have a lot of exposed wood and these big metal trusses going in," Drew Cohen said. "We'll have a 16-foot-tall birdcage around the checkout area."

Scott Seeley noted that the store's new location won't have the same foot traffic as the old location, but said, "We learned that foot traffic is not our customer base. It's a destination location. So many people come to Las Vegas against their will--for conferences or their cousin's wedding. They're nerdy book people like us. They're looking for a bookstore."

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is realigning its sales team.

Ed Spade, formerly director, digital sales, strategy & business development, has been promoted to v-p, national accounts, trade sales & strategy. He and Colleen Murphy, v-p, special markets, mass market, and product development, will co-lead the sales team. Maire Gorman, senior v-p, trade sales, has left the company.

In addition, Christine Sikule has joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the new role of director of sales analytics. She formerly was metadata manager at Penguin Random House.

photo: Petite Shards Productions

Meg Medina, the award-winning Cuban American author who writes picture books, middle grade and YA fiction, was named 2019 Newbery Medal winner for Merci Suárez Changes Gears (Candlewick), announced earlier this week at ALA Midwinter in Seattle, Wash.

Congratulations! You are clearly no stranger to awards: Burn Baby Burn was longlisted for the 2016 National Book Award and shortlisted for both the Kirkus Prize and the Los Angeles Book Prize; you received the Pura Belpré Author Award for 2014's Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass and a Pura Belpré honor for 2016's Mango, Abuela, and Me; and now you have the Newbery Medal for Merci Suárez Changes Gears! Is this your first work for middle-graders?

Actually, my very first novel, published by Holt, was also a middle grade novel, but it is no longer in print. For a long while after that, I published at each end of the spectrum: picture books, which for me feel poetic and soothing, and young adult novels, which thrust me right into imbalance and restlessness--and even a little bit of rage. When I began writing Merci, I had to modulate and find that very particular voice of someone who is 11. For me, it's a voice still rooted in the fun and wonder of childhood, but also able to start noticing the underbelly of life. I was worried that I couldn't do it, so it's especially surprising and gratifying to get the award for Merci.

Merci was influenced, in part, by your experience taking care of elderly and ailing parents. Did that make Merci feel more personal than some of your other works? If so, does that add extra weight to receiving such an immense award for this book?

All of my works are deeply personal, although they are not necessarily biographical. It's true that I had the experience of living with my mother during the last year of her life and also of living with both my mother-in-law and my tía Isa when they were unable to live alone. Those experiences happened while my own children were still at home. I can say that it brought out the best and worst in all of us, but I don't think we would have done anything differently.

I think what gives this award a feeling of extra weight for me is that it is a celebration of families, particularly Latino families at a time in our history when we hear many disparaging characterizations. 

Do the different awards feel different? You've had such an incredible career and you continue to make such a big impact in children's literature, does it feel different to get recognized for different works?

Every award is a miracle and a life-changing event for different reasons. The Ezra Jack Keats turned people's eyes toward my work very early in my career. The Pura Belpré was so meaningful because it felt like an affirmation of belonging to the rich history of Latino literature in this country. The Newbery, though, is a statement about universality and connection with readers across all lines.  

Your blog says 2018 was a year of change. What was that year of change like? Does this feel like an appropriate end to your very busy, very productive year?

My 2018 was filled with new experiences. I published a middle grade novel. I began teaching at Hamline University. I had to make difficult changes in how to care for my aunt. But to be honest, I'm thinking about this more as a beginning than an end--it's January, after all. My editor, Kate Fletcher, made me promise to take a few days to really let this sink in and enjoy the feeling. After, I'll turn to the questions in my heart. How do I make this medal matter beyond the distinction it offers me personally? How can I use it to help create new readers? How do I work now to build bridges and open paths for writers coming behind me with their own stories to tell? 

Thank you so much for speaking with us! Is there anything else you'd like to tell Shelf readers?

Only that I truly appreciate all the good wishes that have flooded in. That, and the fact that we all have some wonderful books to pick up from the long list of distinguished ALA winners this year. Let's dig in!

Congratulations again!

At a panel at Winter Institute last week in Albuquerque, N.Mex., Lissa Muscatine, co-owner of Politics & Prose in Washington, D.C., Alena Jones, inventory manager at Seminary Co-op Bookstores in Chicago, Ill., and Rachel Watkins, director of operations at Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga., discussed dealing with difficult people and navigating sensitive situations in a bookstore. Topics included everything from tough human resources conversations with staff members to customers making unwanted advances and even politically motivated harassment. Meg Smith, membership and marketing officer at the American Booksellers Association, moderated the discussion.

Watkins suggested that any bookstore that does not outsource its HR should make sure they have someone on staff who is approachable. She documents everything, including if an employee did something incorrectly at work or even if a staff member simply seemed like they didn't want to be at work that day. When addressing issues with staff, Watkins said she often uses a "sandwich," which is sandwiching a negative with two positives. She also noted that if a supervisor sees an employee doing something incorrectly, it is best to do corrections in "real time," if you're able to take someone off the floor to talk to them. She said she will also frequently make notes of things and then see if it happens more than once, and good ways to have tough conversations include walking and talking or talking in a car. In terms of documenting incidents, she said she'll take anything, including text messages, e-mails or screenshots.

Later in the discussion, Watkins said that she and Avid's owner Janet Geddis have told staff that "we don't care about the cash drawers," meaning that if an employee is closing by themselves and feels threatened or afraid, they can make up an excuse to get out of there, such as faking a phone call warning of a gas leak. Watkins also shared a letter that she had written to a customer who had begun visiting the store very frequently with the intention of seeing a specific bookseller. In the letter, Watkins politely but firmly wrote that all visits should be focused on "books and not booksellers," or else he would not be welcome back in the store.

At Seminary Co-op, Jones and her co-workers have worked to create guidelines and protocols for how booksellers can extricate themselves from uncomfortable situations with customers. Those guidelines cover some of the most common situations about which booksellers complained, including being cornered by a customer, being touched by a customer, or having a standard handselling conversation get too personal too quickly. The guidelines instruct booksellers how to end conversations quickly, professionally and directly, while almost always coming back to bookselling. Some examples include bringing in another bookseller or inventing a work-related excuse to go to another floor, and the staff has even created a code word to use when they feel they need someone else in the room. If, for example, booksellers hear the page "Earl needed in room one," they should proceed to room one where someone on staff needs help.

As an example of these guidelines put in practice, Jones recalled an incident when a "known individual" who had had encounters with staff members before, and was later banned from the store, came in shortly before closing, when only Jones and one other bookseller were still working. The customer asked the other bookseller to take him to the European history section. She agreed, but asked Jones to join them under the pretext that her knowledge of the European history section was more thorough. Both of them went, and they were eventually able to usher the man out of the store without further incident.

Muscatine talked primarily about politically motivated harassment. Her store is down the street from Comet Ping Pong, a pizza restaurant that became the focal point of the "pizzagate" conspiracy theory invented by right-wing trolls in 2016. It started before the election and gradually grew to include other businesses nearby, including Politics & Prose. Muscatine described it as an "incredible level" of harassment, and said that at its peak the store was getting 50-60 harassing phone calls per hour, all day long. On the first Sunday of December in 2016, while an event was going on in P&P, a man with a shotgun walked into Comet looking for the alleged captive children. He of course found nothing, and was subsequently arrested, tried and convicted. The incident, and entire situation, forced Muscatine and co-owner Bradley Graham to "think a lot about staff and customer safety" in ways that they hadn't before.

While she did not go into details, Muscatine reported that they have since put some "very serious" security measures in place and have undertaken special training for the staff. She noted that since the man was convicted, the harassment has largely receded, though the store does still get occasional calls. Staff have been trained to deal with the phone calls by immediately reporting the numbers to the police. Muscatine added that store has installed security cameras recently, with the idea that they would function more as a preventative measure than anything else, but they've "turned out sadly to be very useful," and have already caught some "major league" shoplifting. --Alex Mutter

Congratulations to Third Street Books, McMinnville, Ore., which is celebrating its 15th anniversary this Saturday, February 5. The store will offer hot cider and donut holes all day; $1 raffle tickets for a bag of goodies (with proceeds going to the SMART program--Start Making A Reader Today); surprise swag bags for the first 50 customers of the day; 15% off on all new books; and a story time at 11 a.m.

Owner Sylla McClellan wrote to customers: "Years ago my husband told me that I was basically unemployable. I've been self-employed for so long that I would make a lousy employee; too independent and not great at taking direction from others. But I think that skill-set has helped me carry on with Third Street Books, through thick and thin.

"Do you remember the store 15 years ago? We were in a different space (now the McMinnville Antiques Mall). The walls were a frightening blue and the inventory was low and stale. My brother, husband and I worked for two weeks (through a crazy snow storm!) to make physical updates to the space, and try to create something new and exciting. We opened with a new computer system, a few more books and lots of dreams!

"We've had some amazing times! Who was here for the Harry Potter Midnight Parties? Where a local County Commissioner came as Professor McGonagall! Did you get a chance to hear amazing Oregon author Brian Doyle during any of his visits to the store? We were featured in Sunset Magazine. We grew, and shrank and moved to our new location. We've always been proud to be part of such an amazing community--and we've benefited from your support. Remember the Cash Mob of 2012? When we moved into the new space, many of you came down and helped us schlep all the books--fire-brigade-style--from one space to the next!

"Fifteen years has flown by. I see kids I knew when they were in kindergarten heading off to college. We've gained LOTS of new customers, as well as lost a few as people have moved away, or passed on. Our amazing staff has been here to help you find *just the right book* and I am always in awe and grateful for my crew of Real Professional Booksellers. Third Street is as vibrant as ever--and we are proud to be here for the long haul!"

For the third year in a row, Avid Bookshop, Athens, Ga., has made the annual Bulldog 100 rankings, which recognize the 100 fastest-growing businesses owned or operated by University of Georgia alumni. Avid founder Janet Geddis earned an M.Ed. from the university in 2006. This year, Avid was #40 on the list.

Geddis commented: "When my independent business is recognized for both the tangible and intangible benefits we bring to our community, it shines a light on all independent businesses that are providing cultural and economic benefits to their regions. Thanks to our customers nationwide, we have seen tremendous growth since our first shop opened in 2011, and we have been able to provide fulfilling jobs for our staff, many of whom are UGA graduates."

Effective August 1, Simon & Schuster will distribute David Zwirner Books in North America, which will enable David Zwirner Books to expand beyond traditional fine-art monographs and catalogues to publish other types of books, including fiction, politics, literature in translation, poetry, and plays, the publisher said.

Founded in 2014 by the David Zwirner gallery, David Zwirner Books, New York City, publishes more than 30 books a year. Highlights include Donald Judd Writings; William Eggleston: The Democratic Forest, Selected Works; Anni Albers: Notebook 1970-1980; R. Crumb: Bible of Filth; The Sweet Flypaper of Life; What It Means to Write About Art; and Yayoi Kusama: Festival of Life.

"David Zwirner Books has redefined what a gallery publisher can be and is now responsible for many of the most exciting and dynamic art books in the industry," said Michael Perlman, v-p, general manager of Simon & Schuster Publisher Services.

Noting that David Zwirner Books has been distributed by Artbook | D.A.P., Lucas Zwirner, editorial director of David Zwirner Books, said, "We offer our gratitude to our friends and colleagues at D.A.P. for their important role in our development as a publisher. I particularly want to thank Sharon Gallagher for her incredible support in our early days." Thames & Hudson remains the distributor for David Zwirner Books outside of North America.

Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth, illustrated by Robb Mommaerts (Penguin Workshop), a new middle grade series.

Tomorrow:
The View: Pete Buttigieg, author of Shortest Way Home: One Mayor's Challenge and a Model for America's Future (Liveright, $27.95, 9781631494369).

Gabriel Byrne (Hereditary) and Elizabeth McGovern (Downton Abbey) will lead the ensemble cast in Urban Myth Film's TV series reimagining of the science fiction classic novel War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, Deadline reported. Written and created by Howard Overman (Misfits), the project also stars Léa Drucker, Natasha Little, Daisy Edgar Jones, Stéphane Caillard, Adel Bencherif and Guillaume Gouix.

Production is currently underway in the U.K. and France on the eight-episode series. Gilles Coulier (Cargo) will direct the first four episodes. Richard Clark (Versailles) will helm episodes five to eight.

"Set in contemporary Europe, the reimagining will follow the pockets of humanity left on earth following an apocalyptic extra-terrestrial strike," Deadline wrote. The series is due to debut later this year on Canal+ in France, and on Fox in more than 50 markets.

The BBC is also releasing a TV adaptation of War of the Worlds later this year, starring Rafe Spall and Eleanor Tomlinson.

Bart van Es won the £30,000 (about $39,280) Costa Book of the Year award for The Cut Out Girl, which the judges described as "the hidden gem of the year. Sensational and gripping, and shedding light on some of the most urgent issues of our time, this was our unanimous winner."

The Cut Out Girl is the seventh biography to take the overall prize. The last biography to win the Costa Book of the Year was H Is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald in 2014.

Caroline Ward Vine won the £3,500 (about $4,580) Costa Short Story Award for "Breathing Water."

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Barnes & Noble has announced the six finalists for the 2018 Discover Great New Writers Awards. Winners in each category receive a $30,000 prize and a full year of promotion from B&N. Runner-up authors receive $15,000 each, and the third-place finalists $7,500 each. Winners will be announced March 6 in New York City. The finalists, with judges' descriptions, are:

Fiction:
Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth (Harper). "A beautifully written, classic story of brothers and revenge, injustice and honor, set in 1880s Australia."

A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza (SJP for Hogarth). "At once intimate and epic, this is an unforgettable story of family and identity, past and present, choices and consequences, home and the outside world."
 
There There by Tommy Orange (Knopf). "Tommy Orange writes about the lives of Urban Native Americans with force and velocity, digging deep into narratives that balance between painful and profound."

Nonfiction:
American Prison by Shane Bauer (Penguin Press). "A ground-breaking inside investigation into the private prison industry and the forces that drive it, told by a journalist who was legitimately hired under his own name with no background check."

Educated by Tara Westover (Random House). "A searing story of growing up off the grid, which becomes an inspirational story of a young woman who saves her own life through her love of books and learning."

Heavy: An American Memoir by Kiese Laymon (Scribner). "An insightful, fearless, and often very funny story of weight, identity, art, friendship, and family that explores what a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation."

photo: Olivia Drake

Andrew S. Curran is the William Armstrong Professor of the Humanities at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn. Early in his career, he wrote two books on the history of medicine, the second one, The Anatomy of Blackness, a sweeping history of how the concept of "race" crystalized during the 18th century. More recently, Curran has turned his attention to the French Enlightenment genius Denis Diderot with Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely (Other Press, January 15, 2019).

On your nightstand now:

I tend to drop physically or intellectual heavy books on my face when falling asleep. Nighttime is therefore a time for e-reader crime or mystery novels. I have a particular fondness for anything written by John Sandford, a writer to whom I essentially subscribe. This week I'm reading his Holy Ghost. Queued up are John le Carré's A Legacy of Spies, Mindy Mejia's Leave No Trace and Tana French's The Witch Elm.

Favorite book when you were a child:

Growing up in the 1970s, I loved William Pène du Bois's The Twenty-One Balloons, the story of a retired schoolteacher whose hot-air balloon crash lands on the volcanic island of Krakatoa, where he discovers a secret and sophisticated society financed by the island's diamond cartel. Surely now a problematic fave full of unrepentant money-grubbers, colonialist overtones and class warfare.

Your top five authors:

In my personal pantheon, I would first induct two writers, the polymath Denis Diderot and the essayist Michel de Montaigne. Both are lifelong companions that grow old with you. I am particularly attracted to Diderot the freethinker, novelist, art critic, political theorist and writer who turned philosophy into a cudgel. After Diderot and Montaigne comes a far less jovial figure, Gustave Flaubert, a writer whose realist narration is particular in its ability to make the reader suffer through his ironic views of 19th-century life. (His Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education should be read every two years.) In an entirely different vein, I would next induct Toni Morrison, whose Song of Solomon was the most powerful book I read in college by far. Finally, there is Richard Russo, who writes so beautifully (and painfully) about the place I grew up, upstate New York, that I feel like I am sometimes reading memories I didn't have.

Book you've faked reading:

My son recently gave me Michael Pollan's How to Change Your Mind. I loved parts of this, but I couldn't do it, even in micro-doses.

Book you're an evangelist for:

Robert Graves's I, Claudius. One of the greatest feats of historical fiction ever produced.

Book you've bought for the cover:

Tony Horwitz's Blue Latitudes. I was drawn to a small image of Captain Cook's ship artfully perched on our globe.

Book you hid from your parents:

My parents were intellectual libertarians. They let me read anything. There was no hiding of prose or anything else.

Book that changed your life:

Alan Watts's 1940 The Meaning of Happiness. Time to re-read this wonderfully preachy synthesis of Eastern and Western mysticism.

Favorite line from a book:

I love Voltaire's biting epigrams and aphorisms. This one has been dancing around my mind for a while: "Nothing is more dangerous than ignorance and intolerance armed with power."

Five books you'll never part with:

Patrick Süskind, Perfume
Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera
Charles Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil)

Book you most want to read again for the first time:

Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

Books you'd like to write:

For some reason, I'm increasingly interested in writing a biography about the ill-fated Louis XVI. Am also thinking about a satirical novel about academia, but every academic says that.

When the Korean peninsula was divided into North and South in 1953, the consequences were especially tragic for separated families. In the six-plus decades since the ceasefire, reunion--politically and personally--has proven virtually impossible. On either side of the Military Demarcation Line, both North and South Korea built fences approximately 1.25 miles from the actual line, stretching 154 miles across the peninsula. Ironically, this Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) has flourished as an untouched haven for flora and fauna: the coastal seals, migrating birds, otters, salmon, mountain goats and water deer all thrive here, oblivious of the man-made borders surrounding them.

People, too, arrive at the DMZ, albeit under highly different circumstances. "When spring comes to the DMZ," while nature rejuvenates, "soldiers check the fence/ and fix the broken places." With the milder weather, "Grandfather climbs up/ to the DMZ observatory/ and looks at the northern sky." As seasons change, soldiers "undergo exhausting training" in summer, practice tank and plane maneuvers in autumn and "think of their homes" in winter. Without fail, "Grandfather climbs up to the DMZ lookout again," to gaze longingly at the "northern land." As another year passes and spring returns, Grandfather's only wish is to bypass the lookout, "fling the tightly locked gates wide open"... and share the same freedom as the nearby animals.

Internationally award-winning author/artist Uk-Bae Lee has never known a united country. He channels a hope for reunion into When Spring Comes to the DMZ, originally published in his native South Korea in 2010 as part of the Peace Picture Book Project, featuring illustrators from Korea, China and Japan. His text, smoothly translated by Chungyon Won and Aileen Won, is understated and simple, with further resonance presented through his multi-layered illustrations. The reader's first glimpse of the DMZ, for example, is the same as Grandfather's, the lush, green landscape seen through two circles entirely surrounded by black--mimicking the view from Grandfather's binoculars. Additionally, during Grandfather's autumn visit, a blond man and his child gaze outward, while Grandfather pointedly regards a single leg garbed in white-starred blue pants and a red shoe as it moves off the page; the foreign presence is undeniable, with the possible implication that a U.S. exit could be imminent or, in Grandfather's opinion, even necessary.

Grandfather's--and Lee's--persistent dream of reunification of a fractured homeland manifests in the penultimate spread, which opens like a magic portal, the rusted, over-secured fence folding out to a tranquil kingdom where war weapons have long broken down into obsolescence. Grandfather and grandson tread a path linking the pair to another grandparent and grandchild coming from the other side, until the pages fold over to confirm a joyous, long-overdue family reunion. As if inserting a final reminder to the powers that be, the world map on the back inside cover is subtly transformed with an unbroken Korean peninsula. With gentle words and glorious art, Lee inspires the newest generation of readers to lead the way... and make such miracles happen. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon

Shelf Talker: Throughout the seasons, Grandfather journeys to Korea's DMZ to gaze upon the northern lands he can visit only with his eyes and heart.