Geringer to Step Down at Harper

-- Publishers Weekly, 8/7/2008 2:45:00 PM

Laura Geringer, a 28-year veteran at HarperCollins Children's Books who has published an eponymous imprint at the company for the last 17 years, will step down at the end of this month. Geringer’s next project will be a business venture involving multi-platform story content, and she plans to spend time on her writing career and the charity First Book as well. “I’d like to extend a big thank you to HarperCollins for almost three decades of deeply rewarding collaboration,” Geringer said in an internal memo. “This is an exciting time in publishing when an ever developing digital environment challenges all of us to reinvent the art of storytelling. I have had a great time with some of the best of the best in the field, and I look forward to continuing to do so in this next chapter of my career.”

Since its inception, Geringer’s imprint has sold more than 50 million books, including picture books by William Joyce, as well as the seven-book If You Give A... series by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond. The publisher has also worked with Avi, Lois Ehlert, Kevin Hawkes, Wendell Minor and Brian Selznick, among numerous other authors and illustrators. Geringer is leaving the company just a few months after Joanna Cotler, who stepped down from her own longtime eponymous imprint earlier this year.