HONOREES
6 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ SEPTEMBER 9, 2019
HANNAH OLIVER DEPP
Owner
Loyalty Bookstores, Washington, D.C.D
uring a gap year after earning an MA in English
and planning to pursue a PhD, Depp surprised
her friends and family, who assumed she was
going to be an African-American literature
scholar, by changing paths and landing at Politics and Prose,
selling books for five years. From there she moved up to New
York, where she managed the Word bookstores. She found
her calling: “I find bookselling fascinating because it com-
bines all of my life experience [in literature and theater], so
I don’t have to divide myself in little pieces.” While in New
York, she learned that the only bookstore in her old
Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Petworth was closing;
she wouldn’t stand for
it and Loyalty was
born, with a second
location opening soon
in Silver Spring, Md.
Oliver Depp is also a
founding member of
Indies Forward and the
American Bookselling
Association Committee
on Diversity and serves
on its Educational Task
Force, as well as a New
Atlantic Independent
Booksellers Association
board member.ORLANDO DOS REIS
Editor
Scholastic Press, New York CityR
ight from the start of his career at Abrams as an
editorial assistant, Dos Reis made his mark working
on what his colleague Shelly Romero calls “nerd-
terrific” properties such as Star Wars, the Flash,
SuperGirl, and the
SpongeBob comics,
among many other
graphic novels for chil-
dren and adults. At
Scholastic since 2017,
Dos Reis is busy
bringing in new talent,
such as Rosiee Thor,
whose queer sci-fi YA
novel, Tarnished Are the
Stars, will be published
in October. Next June
will see the release of
Where We Go from Here
by debut Brazilian author Lucas Rocha. Rocha’s YA novel, set
in contemporary Rio de Janeiro, is about three young men whose
lives become entwined in the face of HIV. It was originally pub-
lished in 2018. Because Dos Reis is from Brazil and can read
Portuguese, when his publisher brought it back to him after a
visit to the country, he dipped in and immediately fell in love
with it. “I still can’t believe how lucky I am that I get to publish
this novel for the U.S. market,” Dos Reis says.MARISSA DECUIR
President and partner
JKS Communications, New OrleansB
ack in 2008 when Julie Schoerke, founder of the book-publicity firm JKS, hired
DeCuir, they conducted business on the couch at Schoerke’s home, powered by
a shared bowl of peanut M&Ms. In 2017, at age 30, DeCuir was promoted to
president and has been running the firm, which now has three locations and
20 publicists, representing more than 700 authors and 1,200 books. Schoerke credits
DeCuir’s success not only to her 16-hour days, but also to her background as a journalist.
As editor-in-chief at Louisiana State University’s newspaper, she oversaw a team that
reported from the front lines of catastrophic Hurricane Katrina. While still in her 20s,
USA Today, National Geographic, and the Chicago Sun Times hired her as a journalist and
contributor. “She’s a consummate journalist and knows how to give a reporter the hook
or exclusive that is a win-win for a new book or author platform launch,” Schoerke says,
“but, at her core, she’s a caring and compassionate leader for authors, publicists, and our
community at-large. She makes our industry a better place to work and write.”©^
sh
elly^ romero