Fairgoers Raise $12,500 for Agent’s Memorial Fund

by Edward Nawotka -- Publishers Weekly, 10/27/2008 12:45:00 PM

At a charity raffle at the Frankfurt Book Fair, dozens of friends and colleagues of the late Gernert Company literary agent Tracy Walker Howell raised $12,500 to benefit the Tracy Walker Howell Memorial Fund. The money raised will go toward endowing a scholarship at Howell's alma mater, Middlebury College, for a student to study for a year at the C.V. Starr-Middlebury School in Italy.

Howell, who served as a literary agent and director of foreign rights for The Gernert Company, died suddenly on February 8, 2006, age 42. She was widely known, in part, because of her role as manager of world publishing rights for John Grisham. Organizers of the raffle included Cecile Barendsma and Cullen Stanley, both of Janklow & Nesbit, and Hal Fessenden, v-p of subsidiary rights, Penguin USA. Nancy Wiese, v-p director of subsidiary rights at Grand Central, served as MC of the event. Among the prizes were several weeks in vacation homes spread across the globe, as well as jewelry, and a custom drawing by Matteo Pericolli. Among the winners were scout Virginia Marx, who won a week in the Liguria vacation house donated by Ullstein Heyne publisher Ulrich Genzler, and Maria B. Campbell, who took home a new Sony e-reader. A full list of prizes and winners, as well as further information about the Tracy Walker Howell Memorial Fund is online.