Effective April 1, Lynn Grady has become group publisher of a newly formed division in Chronicle Books that will include Princeton Architectural Press and the recently launched imprints Chronicle Prism and Chronicle Chroma. Grady was named publisher of Princeton Architectural Press in 2019 after 15 years at HarperCollins.

Under this new structure, Cara Bedick, editorial director of Chronicle Prism, and Steve Crist and Gloria Fowler, publishing directors of Chronicle Chroma, will continue to lead their respective imprints. Each of the three publishing programs will maintain its own vision and identity. At the same time, the company said, the imprints will benefit "from the combined talents across all three publishing programs and within the larger Chronicle Books organization."

Chronicle president Tyrrell Mahoney said, "We launched Chronicle Prism and Chronicle Chroma to expand our reach and support continued growth in narrative nonfiction and high-quality illustrated publishing. Over the last two years, we have been thrilled and inspired by the growth of our sister company Princeton Architectural Press under Lynn Grady's leadership. With the creation of this new publishing division, we are confident that we can not only maintain that momentum but further build upon the creative and entrepreneurial energies and success of Prism and Chroma."

Cristina Juvier

Cristina Juvier has been named chief people officer of Scholastic, a new position at the company. Juvier will head Scholastic's human resources department in the U.S. as well as serve as a resource "to bring best practices to offices throughout the world with a focus on professional development and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging initiatives." She will start April 25.

Most recently, Juvier was head of human resources at Reuters since 2019 and head of diversity & inclusion for Thomson Reuters as a whole since 2021. She began her career in corporate law and moved into human resources management while working for AIG, where she was in the Latin America division before moving to work on European and Emerging Markets business. She later came to New York as head of human resources for the Chartis Latin America and Caribbean region and has also held leadership roles at Cablevision and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

Scholastic president and CEO Peter Warwick commented: "The timing is right for this new role as we build the company for growth in a rapidly changing marketplace and pivot towards new ways of working together cross-divisionally and globally. I'm eager for us all to learn from Cristina who is an experienced global executive and leader of transformative human resources functions. With her, we will forge the right people strategies, policies, and changes to enable Scholastic to deliver on its mission even more effectively in the future."

Juvier said, "People are at the heart of every business and I'm energized by all I've already learned about the passion of Scholastic employees. Particularly as we re-emerge from the pandemic, I look forward to supporting employees in our global transition to a 'new normal,' helping to build a growth-oriented organization, and ensuring professional growth and DEIB initiatives continue to move forward."

Women & Children First in Chicago, Ill., held a candlelight vigil Sunday evening for activist Elise Malary, whose body was found in Lake Michigan last week, CBS Chicago reported.

Memorial message on the wall at Women and Children First

"Dozens of mourners" gathered at the bookstore to share memories of Malary and write messages in her honor on the store's brick walls in chalk. Malary, a Black trans woman who worked with the Chicago Therapy Collective, the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and Equality Illinois, was described as a tireless advocate for Chicago's LGBTQ+ community. She also served with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul in the Civil Rights Bureau. In 2019, Malary led a rally for equality after the bookstore's windows were repeatedly defaced with stickers bearing explicit anti-trans messages.

Malary, who was 31, went missing on March 9. Investigators said they did not suspect foul play.

Following the vigil, mourners marched in Malary's honor and "still late into the night, people were coming by and paying their respects," CBS wrote.

Anders Bookstore, Auburn, Ala., which had been in business since January 1966, has closed permanently, Al.com reported. The bookstore's building will be demolished to make room for a 177-room hotel.

The bookstore, described as an "Auburn icon," had deep ties to the community and to Auburn University. It was owned and operated by the Anders family for decades, and Auburn Mayor Ron Anders Jr. was CEO of the bookstore for 20 years, succeeding his father and grandfather.

The Anders family sold the store in 2005. Most recently it was operated by Follett.

Bruce Duffy, "an ambitious, inventive writer whose debut novel, The World as I Found It--with its improbable leading man, the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein--received rapturous reviews but nevertheless failed to make him a lasting literary star," died February 10, the New York Times reported. He was 70. For all the praise he received in his mid-30s, Duffy "produced only three novels, with long gaps between the publication of each--the fruits of a career in which he wrote mainly on the side while earning a living as a security guard, corporate consultant and speechwriter."

On Salon.com in 1999, more than a decade after it was published, Joyce Carol Oates named The World as I Found It one of the five greatest nonfiction novels and "one of the most ambitious first novels ever published." 

Duffy was recognized in 1988 as a Guggenheim Fellow and received the Whiting Award, for emerging writers, in fiction, but "a decade would pass before he produced a follow-up novel," Last Comes the Egg (1997), and it was "14 more years before he reimagined another esoteric subject, in Disaster Was My God: A Novel of the Outlaw Life of Arthur Rimbaud (2011)," the Times wrote.

Although neither novel was a bestseller, Kate Duffy said her father was not dismayed: "Writing was his passion, a drive that took over everything for him. Whatever disappointment he felt, he just started another novel."

The World as I Found It received new life in 2010 when New York Review Books reissued it as a classic after it had gone out of print. Edwin Frank, NYRB editorial director, said: "It is a serious novel about the grip of ideas and a historical novel executed with a very personal and remarkably light touch. Bruce's book typically drives philosophers bats, by the way--another thing that recommends it."

Duffy had completed American Humdinger, a historical novel about the creation of the atomic bomb, the Times noted, but when he couldn't find an agent to sell it, he "gave up and started a new one, which was unfinished at his death."

Wicked Good Books, Salem, Mass., shared a photo of its latest sidewalk chalkboard message, featuring a quote from Arnold Lobel's Days with Frog and Toad, noting: "Our latest chalk art is all about friends. Artist Shana Cuddy has been with us in one way or another since Day 1. Thanks Shana!"

Maggie Cassion has joined Macmillan as v-p, central marketing. She formerly headed marketing communications at Munich Re, the global provider of reinsurance and insurance. Before that, she was senior lead for global marketing at Edelman, the communications marketing firm.

Books Are Magic, Brooklyn, N.Y., shared a TikTok post with a great response to that dreaded "I'll Just Get it on @mazon" customer, noting: "Shoutout to @loyaltybooks for the tee, @ravenbookstore/ @dannycaine and Alex MacGillis @picador for the reading!!"

Rock Star Recess by Patrick Baggatta, illustrated by Emily Mullock (Union Square Kids).

Today:
Fresh Air: Frank Bruni, author of The Beauty of Dusk: On Vision Lost and Found (Avid Reader Press/S&S, $28, 9781982108571).

Tomorrow:
Live with Kelly and Ryan: Emmanuel Acho, author of Illogical: Saying Yes to a Life Without Limits (Flatiron, $27.99, 9781250836441).

The View: Matt Damon and Gary White, authors of The Worth of Water: Our Story of Chasing Solutions to the World's Greatest Challenge (Portfolio, $27, 9780593189979).

Rachael Ray Show: Camila Alves McConaughey, co-author of Just Try One Bite (Dial Books, $17.99, 9780593324141).

Tamron Hall: Tyler Henry, author of Here & Hereafter: How Wisdom from the Departed Can Transform Your Life Now (St. Martin's Essentials, $27.99, 9781250796776).

Actress Lena Headey (Game of Thrones, 300) will make her feature film directorial debut on psychological thriller Violet, based on the novel by S.J.I. Holliday. Deadline reported that producers "describe it to us as having elements of The Talented Mr. Ripley and Single White Female, while publishers have also compared it to Killing Eve."

The screenplay is by Gareth Pritchard, whose Sankara Pictures (The Rise) will co-produce with Mark Foligno (Moon) of Limelight CTL and Ben Charles Edwards (Quant) and Phil McKenzie (Twist) of Goldfinch Entertainment. Headey previously wrote and directed 2019 BAFTA-nominated short film The Trap and directed her GoT co-star Maisie Williams in a music video for singer Freya Ridings, Deadline noted. 

"Susi's Violet is a compulsive page turner that stayed with me long after I finished the book--it's exciting that my first feature as a director will be such an intense female thriller," Headey said. "It's a wild ride to the finish with vast cinematic scope, centering around two very complex women who will completely unravel over the course of the film."

Goldfinch's COO Phil McKenzie added: "Goldfinch Entertainment exists to fuel incredible projects and creative leaps--and we're excited to be supporting the multi-talented Lena Headey's foray into feature directing with this irresistible and chilling female-fronted thriller. Gareth has deftly selected and adapted an impossible to put down book into a riveting exploration of a casual friendship that goes deeply awry."

The Publishing Triangle has announced the finalists for the 34th annual Triangle Awards, which honor the best LGBTQ fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and trans literature published in 2021. Winners will be announced virtually May 11. See the finalists for the seven awards here.

Novelist and writing guru Courtney Maum takes readers on a candid, deeply moving journey that details how she found her way out of a labyrinth of depression by rekindling her passion for horses.

By her 35th birthday, Maum (Before and After the Book Deal; Costalegre) was a successful novelist, working on her second book. She was at her happiest--a beloved wife and doting mother of a beautiful baby girl, Nina. She and her equally creative filmmaker husband had moved from Brooklyn, N.Y., into a fixer-upper house they bought in the Berkshire mountains of Massachusetts. But when Nina turned two, something undefinable manifested in Maum--an existential crisis: "At thirty-seven, I did not know what depression looked like, but I refused to admit that it could look like me: a woman with a mortgage and a helpful husband and a healthy child.... That I felt sadness was undeniable, but I felt no right to claim it." Maum was deluged with roiling feelings that stalled her writing, plagued her with insomnia and provoked a general feeling of emotional malaise. A non-life-threatening car crash sustained with her husband and daughter "was a match to the depression" that would all-out engulf her. However, the accident proved a necessary jolt that sent Maum on a journey to reassess her life and decipher what might bring her a sense of peace and joy, and restore her equilibrium.

In therapy, Maum mined her past, recognizing how she missed her affinity and fascination for horses, starting when she was five years old and received a behemoth carved-mahogany rocking horse for Christmas. When she turned six, Santa Claus delivered her a real pony, boarded in a barn near her family's Greenwich, Conn., home. This flurry of youthful excitement and purposeful connection was short-lived--it ended when Maum's parents divorced when she was eight years old and her younger brother faced harrowing chronic illness that took precedence during her foundational years. Maum gave up horses and riding for the next three decades.

Maum's journey of healing and salvation in reconnecting to equine culture--including riding lessons and pursuing competitive polo--is wittily engaging and uncompromisingly forthright. In surmounting personal obstacles and fears, she confronts the past, while also braiding in delightful flourishes regarding the metaphorical meanings of horses and the universal role they have played throughout history and in the arts. --Kathleen Gerard, blogger at Reading Between the Lines

Shelf Talker: This candid, resolute memoir details how a writer suffering an existential crisis found healing and salvation in her passion for horses.

The bestselling self-published books last week as compiled by IndieReader.com:

1. Mr. Bloomsbury by Louise Bay
2. The Man from Sanctum (Masters and Mercenaries: Reloaded Book 3) by Lexi Blake
3. Make Me Your Villain (Battle Crows MC Book 2) by Lani Lynn Vale
4. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter
5. You Can't Fall Off the Floor by Jamie Prickett
6. America's Last Fortress by Alexander Odishelidze
7. Sneaking Around With #34 (Hockey Hotties Book 4) by Piper Rayne
8. Jack Knife by Diane Capri
9. A Touch of Darkness by Scarlett St. Clair
10. The War of Two Queens by Jennifer L. Armentrout

[Many thanks to IndieReader.com!]