The other day we noticed that Simon & Schuster imprint Free Press had advertised an opening for a senior editor on Publishers Marketplace — did this mean an expansion? Well, maybe not: today Ecco books, the imprint founded by Dan Halpern and owned by HarperCollins, announced the hire of Free Press senior editor Hilary Redmon. Ms. Redmon will serve as executive editor at Ecco with a focus on acquiring non-fiction titles. Read More
Anthony Bourdain knows how he can come off. The chef-turned-TV personality has written that it would be “entirely fair and appropriate” were he described as “a loud, egotistical, one-note asshole who’s been cruising on the reputation of one obnoxious, over-testosteroned book for way too long and who should just shut the fuck up.” But it takes only one meeting with Mr. Bourdain—the man who likes to pepper his prose with words like “fucktard” and who made “bad boy chef” a resplendent cliché—to reveal that he is a perfect gentleman.
Get his friends to start talking about him and it becomes very clear that if Mr. Bourdain wants to preserve his louche reputation, he should probably engineer another appearance on TMZ, “running buck-naked down some Milwaukee street with a helmet made from the stretched skin of a butchered terrier pulled down over my ears” (as he once envisioned it).
Instead, Mr. Bourdain—who has long suppressed his inner nerd—has recently been tapped to start an eponymous line of books at the HarperCollins imprint Ecco. Read More
Matt Weiland announced yesterday that he will be leaving his job at HarperCollins imprint Ecco to take a position as senior editor at W.W. Norton on October 24. It’s an exciting move for Mr. Weiland, whose books at Ecco have included Padgett Powell’s conceptual novel The Interrogative Mood and Philip Connors’s nature memoir Fire Season. A native of Minnesota and a Columbia alumnus, Mr. Weiland came to Ecco in 2008 by way of The Paris Review and Granta Books in London. He fills a vacancy left by Robert Weil, whom Norton tapped earlier this year to revive its dormant imprint Liveright & Co.
“I’ve just loved it these past three years at Ecco,” said an exuberant Mr. Weiland on the phone with The Observer yesterday. “[Publisher] Dan Halpern and everyone at Ecco are the best colleagues I’ve ever had and I’d never imagined leaving.” He said the unexpected offer from Norton “feels like some crazy good bank shot.” Read More
Bad boy chef, author of Kitchen Confidential and the host of the food television show “No Reservations,” Anthony Bourdain has a new feather in his chef’s hat: book editor at Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. Mr. Bourdain will join the growing ranks of New York publishing’s celebrity editor/consultants, which include everyone from former Newsweek editor Jon Meacham to former Bush White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. Read More
Ecco went on a cookbook binge last week—buying books from April Bloomfield and Andrew Carmellini, among others—and they aren’t stopping yet. In an interview today with Publishers Weekly, Ecco publisher Dan Halpern said he expects to have a new book from another New York food star.
“I also edit Danny Meyer,” Halpern told Read More
Chef John DeLucie has been serving celebrities at Graydon Carter‘s exclusive Waverly Inn since November 2006. Lately, he’s been soaking up the spotlight himself.
“Someone, somehow told Hugh Jackman that I was doing the food for Graydon’s Vanity Fair Oscar Party,” Mr. DeLucie told the Daily Transom. “So I walk over to his table Read More
Tomorrow will be Matt Weiland’s last day as an editor at The Paris Review. On November 10th he’ll report for duty at the Ecco Press, the distinguished boutique house at HarperCollins that has been enjoying a massive year thanks to the breakout success of David Wroblewski’s dog novel The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Mr. Read More
No doubt riding high on the breakout success of David Wrobewski’s The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, the Ecco Press appears to be on something of a spending spree! Matthew Flamm at Crain‘s reports that Steven Tyler, the lead singer of Aerosmith (not to be mistaken with Sinclair Lewis’ similarly titled book), has sold Read More
Ecco announced this morning that they’ve acquired a major memoir called Crazy for the Storm, which tells the story of a boy from Southern California named Norman Ollestad who at 11 years old survived a plane crash that killed his father.
Interestingly, the agent who sold the book to Ecco is Rob Weisbach, former publisher Read More
Richard Ford, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the Frank Bascombe Trilogy, has left Knopf, his home of 17 years, and signed on to write three books for Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins. The acquiring editor at Ecco was the publisher, Dan Halpern; Binky Urban of ICM, Mr. Ford’s longtime literary agent, brokered the deal.
Two Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
