Publishing for Young Readers: The Success of the Baby-sitter’s Club and Other Publishing Phenomena, October 11, 2018

View a video recording of the event.

Join bestselling author Ann M. Martin ’77 and two legendary publishing professionals, Jean Feiwel and Liz Szabla, for an insider’s look at publishing for children over the past thirty years. Dean of the College and Vice President for Campus Life Susan Etheredge ‘77 will moderate the panel. A reception and book-signing will follow.

Thursday, October 11, at 7:30 p.m., Weinstein Auditorium, Wright Hall

Ann M. Martin ’77 is the bestselling author of The Baby-sitters Club® series and the Main Street series. Her other novels include the Newberry Honor Book A Corner of the Universe, Belle Teal and A Dog’s Life and Rain, Reign. Ann’s most recent book is Missy Piggle-Wiggle and the Sticky-Fingers Cure, the third of three books inspired by Betty MacDonald’s Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series.

Liz Szabla is Associate Publisher of Feiwel and Friends, an imprint of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, where she edits picture books through young adult fiction, and works with new and established talent. Among the books she’s edited are the #1 New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer and other New York Times bestsellers including the Summoner series by Taran Matharu, Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell (winner of the 2018 Caldecott Medal), Wishtree by Katherine Applegate, and em>Rain Reign by Ann M. Martin.

Jean Feiwel’s career was forged first at Avon Books and then Scholastic as the architect for their Trade Publishing program from 1983-2005. She is best known for her invention of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitter’s Club and the publishing of Goosebumps, Animorphs, Harry Potter and other bestselling series. In 2006, she joined Macmillan as Senior Vice President and Publisher, where she founded Feiwel and Friends. Her first book at Feiwel and Friends was Nancy Tillman’s On the Night You Were Born, which now has over 6 million copies in print. Her most recent bestsellers include The Lunar Chronicles and Renegades by Marissa Meyer, the works of Ann M. Martin and Katherine Applegate, Andy Griffiths’ Treehouse series, and Jimmy Fallon’s Your Baby’s First Word Will Be DADA and Everything is Mama. In 2007, she founded Square Fish, a paperback program known for its innovative repackaging. She was named Publishing Director of Henry Holt Books for Young Readers in 2009, and in 2013, she launched Swoon Reads, a groundbreaking crowdsourced imprint.

Contact

Mary Irwin, mirwin@smith.edu
Friends of the Smith College Libraries