Scribner VP and publicity director Suzanne Balaban announced yesterday afternoon that she would be leaving the publishing house at the end of the month to take up a new post directing communications at Jersualem’s Shalem Center, an academic think tank “dedicated to developing and transmitting ideas in the areas most crucial to the intellectual and public life of the Jewish people.” She’ll still have some literary connections there: Among those working at the center are journalists Natan Sharansky and Michael Oren.
Balaban came to Scribner two years ago after serving as assistant director of publicity at William Morrow. “I’m extremely proud of the books I’ve had the good fortune to be involved with at Scribner,” she says, “and the relationships that came from them.” (Among the authors she worked with: Stephen King, Frank McCourt, Annie Proulx, and Kathy Reichs.) She’s eager for the “new challenge” offered by the Shalem Center position, and thrilled that “it will enable me and my family to realize our dream of living in Jerusalem.” She begins her new position on December 28.