MAIN NEWS HEADLINES
April 15-30, 2004 Edition
Breaking News
Avalon Publishing
Acquires Four Walls,
Eight Windows
NEW YORK, NY/04/21/04—Independent publisher Avalon Publishing Group has acquired another independent, Four Walls Eight Windows, expanding the Avalon line by about 200 books. Avalon has acquired all of Four Walls’ backlist and frontlist titles as well as forthcoming releases. The Four Walls imprint will cease to exist, and the titles will appear under Avalon’s Thunder’s Mouth imprint.
John Oakes, former publisher of Four Walls, will become publisher of the Thunder’s Mouth and Nation Books, according to Avalon publisher Charlie Winton. Oakes, who also becomes a vice president of Avalon, replaces Neil Ortenberg, who resigned as head of Avalon Publishing Group’s imprints about a month ago.
Winton said Oakes will not head the New York office, and that Avalon is still looking for someone to fill that post. Oakes; Will Balliet, publisher of Carroll & Graf. and Matthew Lore, publisher of Marlowe & Co, will all report to that New York publishing director.
Thunders Mouth and Nation Books will increase its fall list to 86 titles to include 16 titles from Four Walls. But output thereafter will return to about 70 titles annually.
Four Walls Eight Windows, founded in 1987, includes authors such as George Plimpton, Jerome Charyn, Sue Coe, Gordon Lish, R. Crumb, and Harvey Pekar.
