AP News, June 11th, 2007
The executive editor of the Random House Publishing Group, Daniel Menaker, is leaving at the end of the month "to devote more time to his own writing and to teach," the company announced Monday.
Menaker, 65, is known for his work with such literary authors as Salman Rushdie, Benjamin Kunkel and former U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins. Menaker, whose novel "The Treatment" was recently made into a feature film starring Ian Holm, will continue to work on "selected" Random House titles.
"Dan's Random House legacy will truly last. We have much to thank him for," Gina Centrello, president and publisher of Random House, said in a statement.
A former editor with HarperCollins and The New Yorker, Menaker joined Random House in 2003, not long after publisher Ann Godoff had been fired and replaced by Centrello. Menaker's hiring reassured many who had worried that Random House would not remain committed to publishing literary fiction. Its authors have included Norman Mailer and E.L. Doctorow.
"Dan was my first major hire for our group and I will be forever appreciative of all he has done to enhance and extend the Random House publishing tradition of which we are so proud," Centrello said.
Random House also announced that executive vice president Kate Medina will take on the additional role of associate publisher, and that vice president Jennifer Hershey has been promoted to senior vice president. Kurt Anderson, author of the novels "Heyday" and "Turn of the Century" and former editor in chief of New York Magazine, will be an editor at large, specializing in high-profile nonfiction projects.
The Random House Publishing Group is a division of Random House, Inc., which is part of the German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG.
Godoff, now president and publisher of the Penguin Press, made her own announcement Monday. She has hired Houghton Mifflin's vice president and editor in chief, Eamon Dolan, to take on the same position at Penguin.
Dolan's books at Houghton included Eric Schlosser's "Fast Food Nation" and Richard Dawkins' "The God Delusion."
