Gillian Blake has been named executive editor at Henry Holt, replacing the recently departed Webb Younce at the Macmillan imprint. Ms. Blake’s hiring comes about seven months after severe cutbacks at HarperCollins left her out of work. Her appointment at Holt is just one of several green shoots to have sprouted in the publishing industry in recent months, as a handful of other big-name editors who lost their jobs in the course of last year’s industry-wide downsizing—including Ms. Blake’s former boss at HarperCollins, Bruce Nichols—have landed on their feet.
The position Ms. Blake will occupy starting Sept. 21 was vacated late this summer when Mr. Younce, who had been with the imprint for less than a year, left for a job at the German publishing house Suhrkamp Verlag.
Ms. Blake, who has edited books by Russell Brand, Elizabeth Kolbert and Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, will focus on acquiring “high-profile” nonfiction for Holt, according to an announcement.
