The Board of Directors announces the following new board members:

Les Levi is Managing Director at Plainfield Asset Management, LLC. Dr. Levi began his career in finance at Drexel Burnham Lambert and has worked at Spectrum Investment Group, LP, Advent Capital Management, JP Morgan Chase and Merrill Lynch. In 1999, he was named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the four most influential professionals in the high yield bond market. Dr. Levi received masters and doctoral degrees in Comparative and English Literature from Columbia University and an MBA in Finance from New York University.

W. Drake McFeely, President of W.W. Norton & Co., has made his entire career at the publishing company. Founded in 1923, Norton is the largest independent publisher wholly owned by its employees. Hired as a college traveler upon graduation from Amherst College in 1976, Mr. McFeely was promoted to assistant sales manager in 1980 and within a year had also become an editor. Named a Vice President in 1990, he served as Associate Director of the college department from 1993-94. In 1994, Mr. McFeely was named Norton's fifth president. He has been a member of Norton's Board of Directors since 1990 and its Chairman since 2000.

Edward Volini is Deputy Chairman and Chief Financial Officer worldwide of Random House, the book division of Bertelsmann AG. Mr. Volini joined Random House in 1997 as Vice President and Director of Business Operations of its then-Ballantine Publishing division. He had a series of promotions that culminated in his appointment as Deputy Publisher and then to the corporate position of Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer for Random House, Inc. In 2002 he assumed the additional responsibility for all financial operations as the company's Chief Financial Officer. He was named Deputy Chairman of Random House worldwide in 2003 and added the title of Chief Financial Officer four years later. Prior to Random House, Mr. Volini held executive positions in financial and operational roles at several international entertainment companies, including Time Warner Music, Paramount Communications, and CBS. Mr. Volini holds an MBA in Banking and Finance and a BS in Accounting.

Frank O'Hara (upper left), Photo © Ken Elmslie;  Billy Collins (upper right), Photo © Barbi Reed; Paul Violi (bottom right); Craig Morgan Teicher (bottom left).

For more information visit www.nationalbook.org. For a listing of the entire Madison Square Reads series visit www.madisonsquarepark.org.

SOLD is a series of poetic vignettes telling the story of a 13-year-old Nepali girl’s account of sexual slavery. To research the book, McCormick traveled to India and Nepal to interview the women of Calcutta’s red-light district and girls who have been rescued from the sex trade. The book was selected in part due to its ties to the 2008 Peace Prize Forum at Concordia about global economics.

McCormick will speak on campus during the College Orientation. For more information, contact Amy Kelly at Concordia College, akelly@cord.edu.

To read an excerpt of SOLD, visit www.nationalbook.org. 

• August 2^nd , A Strictly New York Joie de Vivre: Celebrating the Work of Frank O'Hara at Madison Square Park with poets Billy Collins and Paul Violi, New York City
• August 28^th, Young Adult Author Patricia McCormick, author of SOLD, at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota

Dates for the 2007 National Book Awards

• June 15^th, National Book Awards Entry form deadline
• August 15^th, Book submission deadline
• October 10^th, Announcement of this year's National Book Award Finalists in Philadelphia
• November 12^th, National Book Awards Week Begins with 5 Under 35, a celebration of the next generation of fiction writers
• November 13^th, National Book Awards Teen Press Conference
• November 13^th, National Book Awards Finalist Reading
• November 14^th, 58^th National Book Awards