Vanessa Mobley, who abruptly left the Penguin Press at the end of January, is joining the Broadway Books imprint of Random House’s Crown Publishing Group as a senior editor.
Ms. Mobley, who was one of Ann Godoff’s top editors, is joining Broadway two months after the imprint got a new publisher in Diane Salvatore, a lifelong magazine editor who last served as editor in chief of Ladies’ Home Journal. Last December, when the reorganization of Random House saw a number of imprints at the company rearranged or shut down, Broadway was moved from under the now-dissolved Doubleday group and placed under the jurisdiction of Jenny Frost at Crown.
Many in the publishing industry expected that the move to Crown—known primarily as a home for prescriptive literature, health, and self-help—would mean Broadway would not be doing as much narrative nonfiction as it used to at Doubleday. But so far that hasn’t happened, as Ms. Salvatore has acquired several journalistic books since her appointment and has indicated in interviews that, in addition to titles in the health category, she plans to publish “news-based narratives,” “newsmaker memoirs,” “cultural analysis” and “zeitgeisty political analysis.”
If that’s what Ms. Salvatore is going for, then Ms. Mobley is a natural choice, as she is known in the industry for her uncommonly keen eye for serious-minded narrative nonfiction, and has edited over the course of her career such books as Matt Bai’s The Argument, Samantha Power’s Chasing the Flame and Matthew Crawford’s recent best seller Shop Class as Soulcraft.
Broadway announced Ms. Mobley’s hiring today along with that of Lorraine Glennon, who was books editor and senior articles at Ladies’ Home Journal under Ms. Salvatore. Ms. Glennon, like Ms. Mobley, will serve as a senior editor.
