The attrition in the publishing world continues. The announcement today that Random House Canada and McClelland & Stewart will be closing their in-house subsidiary rights departments and instead forging a foreign rights deal with the Cooke Agency International is good news for agency heads Dean Cooke and Sally Harding, but bad new for those losing their jobs in the rights departments. I'm particularly sorry for the loss of two women who have long proved their skill and dedication in M&S rights director Marilyn Biderman and her Random House counterpart, Jennifer Shepherd.
It may be a question of needs must, complex foreign needs really must, and economic needs must absolutely, but the industry will be poorer without them, so I do hope they're snapped up pronto.
mlevin@globeandmail.ca
