Susan Hirschman, founder and publisher of Greenwillow Books, announced that she will retire from her position in August.

Hirschman's career has spanned nearly 50 years, starting in 1954 with a secretarial job in the children's department at Alfred A. Knopf. She went on to work at Harper & Row for 10 years before being named editor-in-chief of the children's department at Macmillan. Hirschman started Greenwillow Books at William Morrow in 1974, and in 1999 the imprint was absorbed into HarperCollins when it purchased Morrow.

Among the authors and illustrators Hirschman published are Kevin Henkes, Arnold and Anita Lobel, Sid Fleischman, Donald Crews and Ann Jonas, Robin McKinley and Jack Prelutsky.

Virginia Duncan will be promoted to v-p and publisher of the imprint, effective August 1. Duncan has been executive editor at Greenwillow since 1997. Before that, she was at Simon & Schuster and Macmillan.