Janet Silver (photo courtesy of Poets & Writers)

Great article in Poets & Writers about Janet Silver, the new editor-at-large for Nan A. Talese’s imprint at Doubleday and former vice president and publisher of Houghton Mifflin.

Here’s an excerpt from the piece.

After all, maybe Silver was sacked after twenty-four years at Houghton for reasons having nothing to do with the ambitions of a thirty-nine-year-old Irish businessman named Barry O’Callaghan. But that seems unlikely. The facts are as follows: O’Callaghan is one of the richest men in Ireland. Although his background is in law, investment banking, and venture capitalism, in December 2006 his Dublin-based educational software company, Riverdeep, pulled off an audacious, highly leveraged reverse takeover of Houghton Mifflin. After the merger, he moved the new company’s official headquarters to the Cayman Islands (always a promising sign). Then, seven months ago, O’Callaghan acquired another piece of low-hanging publishing fruit, Harcourt, taking the next step in an apparent attempt to build a publishing empire. In the fallout surrounding that merger, Silver was one of several well-regarded veteran editors to be shown the door.