GBO NY now is Frankfurt Book Fair New York; Grün Made Head of Frankfurt PR, Communications

In News by Porter Anderson

Amid widening activities, German Book Office New York is renamed Frankfurt Book Fair New York, and Kathrin Grün is named the fair’s chief of public relations and communications.

Image: Frankfurter Buchmesse, Alexander Heimann

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

Frankfurt Book Fair New York
Formerly called German Book Office (GBO) New York, the foreign office of Frankfurt Book Fair in New York City has a new name. Effective immediately, it now operates under the name Frankfurt Book Fair New York Inc.

Thomas Minkus, vice president for emerging media and English-language markets of Frankfurt Book Fair, has been named president of the New York office, and Riky Stock serves as vice president responsible for the book fair’s cultural activities in New York. Expansion of the office’s activities necessitated the name change.

Frankfurt Book Fair New York’s team looks after the fair’s North American exhibitors and is responsible for the Literary Agents & Scouts Center (LitAg). In October, the fair introduced the Publishers Rights Corner adjacent to the LitAg to support international rights activities. Rights managers from publishing houses can reserve tables for their meetings and work in association with the LitAg on “Rights Tuesday,”—which this year falls on October 10.

Among Frankfurt Book Fair New York’s key tasks is coordination of the German-language Festival Neue Literatur, or New Literature Festival, which is staged in collaboration with the other German cultural institutions in New York.

This year’s Festival Neue Literatur is set for March 2 through 5. Six emerging and established authors from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland will meet their American colleagues in New York during the event, which has a theme this year of “Queer as Volk.” The focus is on be on German-language LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning) literature. Here is coverage on last year’s festival.

As the GBO has done in previous years, Frankfurt Book Fair New York will also organize a trip for children’s book editors from North American publishing houses, June 25 to July 1. A meeting for German and American editors and rights managers is planned in New York for this winter about the event, for which Frankfurt Book Fair New York provides financial support.

Also this year, Frankfurt Book Fair New York will again promote German titles in the publication New Books in German, the collection Children’s Books on Tour, and titles selected by Geisteswissenschaften International.

And, of course, the offices of the international trade magazine Publishing Perspectives are based at Frankfurt Book Fair New York under the leadership of our publisher, Hannah Johnson.

New Address

As of February 1, Frankfurt Book Office New York is co-located with our colleagues at Goethe-Institut New York.

The new address is as follows:

Frankfurt Book Fair New York Inc.
(Frankfurter Buchmesse Büro New York)
30 Irving Place
New York, New York USA 10003
Telephone: +1 212 794 2851

For your convenience, here is a quick list of the office’s key players’ email addresses:

Kathrin Grün Made Buchmesse Head of PR, Comms

Kathrin Grün has taken up the position of head of public relations and communications for Frankfurt Book Fair, as of February 1. In this role, she’s responsible for external corporate communications and product communication at the national and international levels, as well as for positioning the company in the public eye. She reports to Katja Böhne, vice president for marketing and communications.

Grün has worked at Frankfurter Buchmesse since 2009, looking after the integrated communication of the fair’s activities abroad, its B2B services and professional topics.

Following her studies of American literature, contemporary German literature and comparative studies in Bonn as well as in Mississippi, she worked with Farrar Straus & Giroux; Lettre International; Carl Hanser Verlag; and Beltz & Gelberg. Grün then took up the position of assistant to the editor-in-chief of the German book trade magazine, Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel. She followed this with work as press officer to the Deutsches Filmmuseum and Deutsches Filminstitut in Frankfurt, and as press spokesperson for White Star Verlag in Wiesbaden.

The Frankfurter Buchmesse communications team includes:

  • Jördis Hille, PR manager with a special focus on German-speaking press relations and the Guest of Honor programme;
  • Frank Krings, PR manager with a special focus on social media and blogger relations;
  • Norbert Interwies, PR manager and officer responsible for the Press Center at Frankfurt; and
  • Ines Bachor, trainee in marketing and communications.
About the Author

Porter Anderson

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Porter Anderson is a non-resident fellow of Trends Research & Advisory, and he has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.