It is with great sadness that we announce that our friend and colleague Joan Bingham passed away Saturday, October 31^st at the age of 85. Joan helped create Grove Atlantic through the merger of Grove Weidenfeld and Atlantic Monthly Press in 1993. She joined the newly formed company as Executive Editor and served on the Board for the last 27 years. From the beginning, Joan took an active role in the business, acquiring, editing and publishing more than 100 titles. Her authors and books included Kiran Desai (The Inheritance of Loss, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize), David Von Drehle (Triangle: The Fire That Changed America), Gail Lumet Buckley (The Black Calhouns), Claire Keegan (Antarctica), Elizabeth Mitchell (Liberty’s Torch), and Juliet Nicolson (The Perfect Summer and other titles). In addition, Joan oversaw the Grove Poetry series publishing books by Kay Ryan (Best of It, winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry), Claudia Rankine, Jesse Ball, and Sarah Lindsay (Primate Behavior, finalist for the National Book Award).

Grove Atlantic Publisher Morgan Entrekin said, “Everyone in the Grove family is deeply saddened by the news of Joan’s passing. She was a beloved colleague, dear friend, and stalwart partner. Grove Atlantic would not exist without her original commitment and her continued support over almost three decades.  We offer our condolences to Clara and her family, and our gratitude for everything Joan contributed to Grove for so many years.  Joan may be gone but Grove will carry on as an independent literary publisher as I know she wanted.”

Donations can be made in honor of Joan at Robin Hood for the Covid-relief fund: https://www.robinhood.org/covid-relief-grantees/index.html