Joni Evans | |
---|---|
Born | April 20, 1942 |
Alma mater | University of Pittsburgh |
Occupation | Publisher |
Spouse | Richard E. Snyder (divorced) |
Partner | Bob Perkins |
Joni Evans (born April 20, 1942) [1] is an American book publisher of over 100 bestsellers, writer, editor, and literary agent. Evans's background and career in publishing includes posts as senior vice president of the William Morris Agency (1994-2006), president and Publisher of Simon & Schuster (1977-1989), and publisher at Random House (1989-1994). [2]
Evans grew up in Larchmont, New York. [1] She graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a BA in creative writing. [1]
From 1989 to 1994, Evans was executive vice president at Random House, Adult Trade Division and also publisher of Turtle Bay Books, a division of Random House. Previously, she had worked at Simon and Schuster for 14 years where she served as subsidiary rights director, associate publisher, then as editor-in-chief of her own division, the Linden Press, and finally as president and publisher of Simon and Schuster. Michael Korda in his memoir describes Evans and with her the rise of the importance of publishing rights in the mid-1970s as well as her eventual partnership with Richard E. Snyder. [3]
From 1994 to 2007, Evans was a vice-president at the William Morris agency. [4] Evans represented a wide array of authors, including Marcus Buckingham, Christopher Byron, Ann Coulter, Fannie Flagg, Martin Garbus, Peggy Noonan, James Patterson, Liz Smith, John Stossel and Michael Weisskopf.
Before that she worked as an editor at William Morrow Publishers, the Book of the Month Club, and for various women's magazines.
Evans was part of a 2003 Penn & Teller's Bullshit! episode, which showed "a nice expose of Rosemary Altea during a taped readings arranged by Showtime. Viewers got a clear picture of how she worked the small group of people present for readings prior to the taping in order to glean information for later use. They also learned how her publicist, Joni Evans, seeded the group with people whose biographies were already known to Altea in order to boost her on-camera success." [5]
Joni Evans is one of the founding members and CEO of wowOwow.com. Evans founded the site in 2008 along with Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells Lawrence and Peggy Noonan.
Michael Korda wrote that Joni Evans played an important part in opening up major executive jobs to women in the book industry as well as making editors and publishers more "conscious of the need to think about the markets for a book." [6]
Evans was married to Simon & Schuster head Richard E. Snyder. [3] Their high-profile divorce made headlines in 1990. [7]
All the President's Men is a 1974 non-fiction book by Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, two of the journalists who investigated the June 1972 break-in at the Watergate Office Building and the resultant political scandal for The Washington Post. The book chronicles the investigative reporting of Woodward and Bernstein from Woodward's initial report on the Watergate break-in through the resignations of Nixon Administration officials H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in April 1973, and the revelation of the Oval Office Watergate tapes by Alexander Butterfield three months later. It relates the events behind the major stories the duo wrote for the Post, naming some sources who had previously refused to be identified for their initial articles, notably Hugh Sloan. It also gives detailed accounts of Woodward's secret meetings with his source Deep Throat, whose identity was kept hidden for over 30 years. Gene Roberts, the former executive editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and former managing editor of The New York Times, has called the work of Woodward and Bernstein "maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time."
Margaret Ellen Noonan, known as Peggy Noonan, is a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and contributor to NBC News and ABC News. She was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986 and has maintained a center-right leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan administration. Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers.
Simon & Schuster Inc. is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924, by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. Along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster is considered one of the 'Big Five' English language publishers. As of 2017 Simon & Schuster was the third largest publisher in the United States, publishing 2,000 titles annually under 35 different imprints.
Mary Elizabeth Smith was an American gossip columnist. She was known as "The Grand Dame of Dish". In the 1960s and early 1970s, she was the entertainment editor for the magazines Cosmopolitan and Sports Illustrated. Between 1976 and 2009, she wrote a self-titled gossip column for newspapers including New York Newsday, the New York Daily News and the New York Post that was syndicated in 60 to 70 other newspapers. On television, she appeared on Fox, E!, and WNBC.
Michael Korda is an English-born writer and novelist who was editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster in New York City.
Richard Leo Simon was an American book publisher. He was a Columbia University graduate, co-founder of the publishing house Simon & Schuster, and father of singer-songwriter Carly Simon.
Atheneum Books was a New York City publishing house established in 1959 by Alfred A. Knopf, Jr., Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn. Simon & Schuster has owned Atheneum properties since its acquisition of Macmillan in 1994 and it created Atheneum Books for Young Readers as an imprint for children's books in the 2000s.
Rosemary Altea is a British author who describes herself as a medium and healer. She has appeared on various programs, including Larry King Live, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and featured in the series premiere of Penn & Teller: Bullshit! alongside mentalist Mark Edward. She has written six books and claims to have a "healing foundation".
Mary Wells Lawrence is an American retired advertising executive. She was the founding president of Wells, Rich, Greene, an advertising agency known for its creative work. She was the first female CEO of a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Wells Lawrence was awarded the Lion of St. Mark for her lifetime achievements at the 2020 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity.
wowOwow was a U.S.-based website publication run by Joni Evans.
Richard Elliot Snyder was an American publishing executive best known for his tenures at Simon & Schuster and Western Publishing.
Nina Bourne (1916–2010) was a publishing executive for more than 70 years for both Simon & Schuster and Alfred A. Knopf. She was known for her marketing and advertising campaigns for many books including Catch-22 and the Eloise series of children's books.
Peter Schwed (1911–2003) was an American editor and the editorial chairman and a trade book publisher for Simon & Schuster. Among the authors he edited were P.G. Wodehouse, Irving Wallace, Harold Robbins, David McCullough and Cornelius Ryan. Schwed also authored or contributed to more than a dozen books. Schwed specialized in sports publications and was either an editor or ghostwriter for such sports figures as Jack Nicklaus, Rod Laver, Bill Tilden, Chris Evert, Bjorn Borg, Roger Angell and Ted Williams. He was the co-author of golfer Nancy Lopez's The Education of a Woman Golfer.
Another Life: A Memoir of Other People is an autobiography written by Simon & Schuster publisher Michael Korda and published in the United States in 1999. In this memoir Korda gives an insider account of the world of publishing from the late 1950s through 1990s and creates intimate portraits of the authors, editors, and celebrities he has worked with over the decades.
Bernard J. Geis was an American editor and publisher who founded the now-defunct Bernard Geis Associates, which published and promoted several best-sellers in the 1960s and 70s, including Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls and Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl and David Wilkerson's The Cross and the Switchblade.
Max Lincoln Schuster was an American book publisher and the co-founder of the publishing company Simon & Schuster. Schuster was instrumental in the creation of Pocket Books, and the mass paperback industry, along with Richard L. Simon, Robert F. DeGraff and Leon Shimkin. Schuster published many famous works of history and philosophy including the Story of Civilization series of books by Will Durant and Ariel Durant.
Phyllis E. Grann is a former book editor and publishing executive. She was the first female CEO of a major publishing firm, Penguin Putnam, and one of the most commercially successful publishers in recent history. She was a long-time editor for Knopf Doubleday, and a former CEO of the Putnam Berkley Group and was also CEO of Penguin Putnam. Grann was responsible for publishing many notable and bestselling authors at Penguin including A. Scott Berg, Judy Blume, Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell, Sue Grafton, Daniel Silva, and Kurt Vonnegut. At Doubleday Grann acquired and edited Jeffrey Toobin, Tina Brown, Bob Herbert, Ayelet Waldman and Tim Weiner. At Knopf she edited John Darnton.
Jonathan Karp is an American book editor, publisher, and writer. He is the publisher, president, and chief executive of Simon & Schuster, and has also led the company's flagship division. Karp also founded Twelve, an imprint at the Hachette Book Group, and was the editor-in-chief of Random House.
Alice E. Mayhew was an American editor who was vice president and editorial director for Simon & Schuster. Mayhew edited many notable authors, which include Bob Woodward, President Jimmy Carter, Doris Kearns Goodwin, David Brooks, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mayhew was known for publishing books about Washington, D.C., such as All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein using a genre which is known as a political narrative, a subgenre of creative nonfiction.
Susan Laurie Kamil was the publisher as well as editor-in-chief of the Random House Publishing Group.