Roxburgh Departs Boyds Mills

By John A. Sellers -- Publishers Weekly, 9/18/2008

Stephen Roxburgh has resigned as publisher at Boyds Mills Press. He was appointed to the position in February 2007, taking over from Kent Brown, who will serve as interim publisher following Roxburgh’s resignation. Previously, Roxburgh had been associate publisher at Boyds Mills, after the company’s 2004 acquisition of Front Street Books, which Roxburgh founded in 1994. “If anybody looks at our record, they’ll see we’re long-term players,” said Brown, who called Roxburgh a friend and said he respects his decision to resign. “We have a great team of people making books.”

Additionally, Boyds Mills will close its Asheville, N.C., office, from which Front Street had historically been based. The three employees in that office—director of institutional marketing Nancy Hogan, editor Joy Neaves and designer Helen Robinson—will not remain with the company on a full-time basis, according to Brown, who notes that the employees did not work exclusively on Front Street titles and that there is no “cause and effect” relationship between Roxburgh’s resignation and the closure of the office. When asked if Front Street would continue on as an imprint of Boyds Mills, Brown said that he had “no thought as to why it won’t.” Roxburgh could not be reached for comment.