None of the ‘Big Five’ publishers will attend this year’s BookExpo

All the so-called “Big Five” publishers have dropped out of BookExpo, the industry’s annual national convention. Hachette Book Group and Macmillan became the fourth and fifth to announce they would not attend the July gathering and the fan-based BookCon that immediately follows.

“With the impact of the coronavirus still an unknown, Hachette Book Group has decided to withdraw our participation in Book Expo and BookCon 2020 in the interest of the health and well-being of our employees and authors,” according to a statement from the publisher. “We’ll miss having the opportunity to engage with booksellers, librarians, and readers but are committed to finding new ways to connect these audiences with our books and authors.”

Penguin Random House, HarperCollins Publishers and Simon & Schuster had already canceled even as the convention’s organizer, ReedPOP, postponed BookExpo and BookCon from May to July.

In a statement Thursday, show manager Jenny Martin said the gatherings, which traditionally attract tens of thousands, were still planned. The events are to be held at the Jacob Javits Convention Center, which New York state has converted to a medical facility.

Tomar wins PEN/Hemingway Award for best debut novel

NEW YORK » Ruchika Tomar’s “A Prayer for Travelers” has won the PEN/Hemingway Award for best debut novel, an honor previously given to Marilynne Robinson, Tommy Orange and Yiyun Li among others.

Currently teaching at Stanford University, Tomar will receive $25,000 and a monthlong residency at the Ucross Foundation writers retreat in Wyoming.

PEN/Hemingway judges called Tomar’s narrative of the friendship between two women in a small Nevada town “a remarkable piece of writing, astute in style and structure and also in the story that it tells.”