Moving to address increasingly bleak rumors about the future of its Free Press imprint, Simon &Schuster has hired Elizabeth Maguire, formerly an executive editor at Addison Wesley, as its editorial director succeeding Adam Bellow, who will continue at the press as editor-at-large.
The hiring of Maguire and Bell puts an end to industry rumors the Free Press, long associated with serious politically conservative, academic and social science titles, was likely to be folded into the adult trade unit much like HarperCollins nonfiction imprint Basic Books. Paula Duffy, who took over as publisher of the Free Press in January, dismissed any notions of closing the imprint, emphasized being "commercial" and having "a lot of backing from S&S. The press will continue to be vibrant, to publish politics, of course, but we're in less ideologial times and there's a shortage of serious nonfiction. We intend to fill the gap, publishing commercially with a broad reach."
Maguire was formerly an executive editor for general books at Addison Wesley, and declined to relocate to its Reading, Mass headquarters after the recent reorganization of AW's book division. Maguire said she intended to "include new categories in general interest and professional" titles.
Before joining Addison Wesley Maguire was executive editor at Oxford Unversity Press, acquiring range of academic and trade nonfiction books. Maguire's past authors -- among them Henry Louis Gates, Jane Tompkins, Michael Eric Dyson, Cornel West and Arnold Rampersad -- would certainly represent a new direction for The Free Press, which has published such politically conservative authors as Charles Murray, David Brock and Dinesh D'Souza.
Bellow, Duffy told PW, wanted fewer "administrative responsibilities" but would continue "acquiring books and staying in touch with the communities he usually monitors." Duffy said the size of the Free Press list, "has been up and down," in recent years. She expects it to be "in the vicinity of 85 hardcover frontlist titles, but we'll also be looking at paperbacks. Its a good number and allows us to develop authors and their manuscripts."
