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| Fred Hills | |
Fred Hills, longtime trade book editor, died on November 7. He was 85.
Hills began a publishing career that lasted more than four decades as an editor at McGraw-Hill, and became editor-in-chief of the McGraw-Hill College textbook division and then editor-in-chief of the trade division. After moving to Simon & Schuster, he spent 26 years as v-p and senior editor at the Simon & Schuster and Free Press imprints.
Among the many authors Hills edited were Vladimir Nabokov, Heinrich Böll, Raymond Carver, Bruce J. Friedman, Arianna Huffington, Wiliam Saroyan, Muriel Rukeyser, Justin Kaplan, Irving Howe, Judith Viorst, M. Scott Peck, Ann Rule, Jane Fonda, Stephen Birmingham, Pete Peterson, Daniel Yergin, David Halberstam and Sumner Redstone. During his time at S&S, he published more than 50 hardcover New York Times bestsellers and, in one 12-month period, he published nine bestsellers.
While working as a salesperson in the book department of the San Francisco Emporium department store in 1958, Hills picked up a copy of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, which had just been published in the U.S. He turned to the first page, read the now famous opening lines, "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul..." and was so drawn in that he bought the book. He remembered later: "I was broke in those days, but I plunked down the full retail price of $5. It was the first hardcover book I ever bought just for pleasure and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would some day serve as Nabokov's editor and work with him on five of his books."
At his retirement party in 2006, Hills said, "I've been at it for over four decades and still find publishing an addictive profession. It's not just that you're always in the middle of some terrific project and don't want to let go. It is also the tremendous pleasure of conducting your education in public with brilliant and interesting people while actually getting paid for it. Editors are a bit like hermit crabs: we inhabit an author's shell for a year or two, get the feel of that world, and then scuttle along to the next one."
Following his retirement, Hills spent 10 winters in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico, running workshops at the International Writers Conference. He also did volunteer editing for Dance Theater of Harlem and served on the board of the Shelter Island (N.Y.) Library.
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| Don O'Connor | |
Don O'Connor, a Macmillan senior field sales and national account manager for Ingram Kids, died on November 13. He was 63.
O'Connor joined Macmillan in 2007 as a Fifth Avenue field sales rep for the New York metro area. Earlier he was national sales manager at Routledge Publishing and national accounts manager at International Thomson.
In a memo to staff, Macmillan president of sales Jenn Gonzalez said that O'Connor was "a fierce advocate for all Macmillan books with an extra fondness for Tor's list. Don always made sure his accounts came first and had everything they needed. In one of my last conversations with Don, he told me that he had sold an extra season of the kids list early to make sure that there was no disruption in service to his account. He also shared his love of books with his daughter, whom he recruited to work at Macmillan seven years ago. It was a joy to see how proud he was of Liz moving up in the organization.
"In addition to Don's admirable dedication to his work, he was simply a pleasure to be around. I know I can speak for the entire Sales team, and the countless others at Macmillan that he impacted, when I say that we will miss Don tremendously."
A celebration of life for O'Connor will be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family has asked people to donate to their local indie bookstore.