Farrar Joins Free Spirit
Brad Zellar -- Publishers Weekly, 8/6/2001
Minneapolis-based Free Spirit Publishing has named Midwest publishing and bookselling veteran Sid Farrar as the press's new executive editor. Farrar, formerly an associate publisher at Hazelden Publishing and the executive director/chief operating officer of Minneapolis literary nonprofit Milkweed Editions, will work with Free Spirit founder and president Judy Galbraith in product development and acquisitions, and will be responsible for overseeing the independent press's editorial team.
Free Spirit has a backlist of over 100 titles and specializes in a nonfiction publishing program for children, Self-Help for Kids and Self-Help for Teens. The press, which handles its own distribution, has 35 employees and sales of more than $5 million. The company last year moved into a recently restored building in Minneapolis's historic Warehouse District.
Farrar, who has also managed an independent bookstore and worked as a juvenile buyer for B. Dalton Booksellers, said that he is looking forward to the challenges of working for an independently owned and operated, for-profit publishing company. "I'm very excited to have the opportunity to get back to the editorial side of publishing," said Farrar.
In other news at Free Spirit, the company announced that former executive editor Marjorie Lisovskis has been named the press's first senior editor.
