Shelf Awareness reports that Philip Turner, v-p and editor-in-chief at Carroll & Graf, Thunder’s Mouth and Philip Turner Books at Avalon Publishing, is joining Sterling Publishing, the Barnes & Noble subsidiary, to direct a new narrative nonfiction imprint called Union Square Press. Starting next fall, Union Square Press will publish 40 titles a year in a range of subjects, including adventure, biography, culture, current and international affairs, the environment, history, politics, social issues and sports. The company will also create a Union Square Press paperback program devoted to revivals of out-of-print books, reprints in trade paperback of both its own and other publishers’ titles and paperback originals.
Turner will also take his imprint – which focuses on what he calls “imperative” non-fiction – that he only started at C&G parent company Avalon a few months ago – over to Sterling. Turner began his career in 1978 as a co-founder with his family of Under Cover Books, an independent bookseller in Cleveland, Ohio. Since leaving Under Cover in 1986, Turner has held a number of senior editorial positions, including executive editor at Times Books and editor in chief of Kodansha America. He joins Sterling January 15.