Several top editors at Penguin Random House accept buyout offers
By Hillel Italie, The Associated Press on July 17, 2023.
NEW YORK (AP) – Some of publishing’s most celebrated and enduring editors are leaving Penguin Random House after accepting buyout packages. Longtime editors of such prominent writers as Anne Rice, Lorrie Moore and Nobel laureates Alice Munro and Elie Wiesel are among those stepping down by the end of the year. Penguin Random House declined Monday to comment on any individual staff members, but multiple publishing officials with knowledge of the buyouts confirmed that departing editors include Vicky Wilson, Jonathan Segal and Ann Close. The officials were not authorized to discuss the decisions and asked to not be identified. “All of us at Penguin Random House greatly respect the life-changing decisions of those U.S. colleagues who have chosen to take the recent company-wide Voluntary Separation Offer,” reads a Penguin Random House statement provided Monday to The Associated Press. “Their contributions to our publishing, our booksellers, and to our readers have made a meaningful difference in who we are as a company and community, and their dedication to mentoring and to sharing their expertise and experience with our next generation of talent will be one of their major legacies,” the statement said. “We thank them and wish them a joyful and fulfilling next chapter.” The buyouts follow numerous other high-profile changes. Global company CEO Markus Dohle and U.S. CEO Madeline McIntosh both left within months of PRH’s failed attempt to purchase rival publisher Simon & Schuster, a deal struck down last fall by a federal judge. In June, Robert Gottlieb, a former Knopf editor-in-chief who worked on all of Robert Caro’s Lyndon Johnson books, died at age 92. Knopf has not yet announced a new editor for the fifth volume. HarperCollins and Hachette Book Group are among other publishers who have offered buyouts in recent months. The Penguin Random House package was offered to employees 60 and older, with 15 years or more of experience at the company. The buyouts come amid a broader reorganization at Penguin Random House, which earlier this year overhauled its Random House and Crown divisions. Wilson, Segal and Close have all worked for decades at the Penguin Random House imprint Alfred A. Knopf, one of the industry’s premier publishers. Others leaving include Knopf Managing Editor Kathy Hourigan, who joined the company in 1963, and Andy Hughes, the imprint’s senior vice president of production and design. Hourigan and Hughes have been closely involved in the publication of Robert A. Caro’s biographical series on Johnson, a project dating back to the 1970s. Penguin Random House declined to comment on whether they would continue working with Caro, who is currently writing the long-awaited fifth and likely final volume on Johnson. 9-8
