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3/20/2009

Swedenborg Foundation Welcomes New Executive Editor

West Chester, PA, March 20, 2009 – The Swedenborg Foundation Publishers is pleased to announce the recent appointment of Joanna Hill as its new executive editor. She brings to this position a background in university press publishing as well as experience with nonprofit and religious publishing. Hill plans to expand the Swedenborg Foundation’s publication program by doubling the number of books the Foundation publishes each year, improving trade and library sales, expanding the subsidiary rights program, and making the books accessible in other formats, such as e-books and audio books.

She states, “We are beginning to translate some of the titles (such as the ever-popular Heaven and Hell and Afterlife) into Spanish and hope to arrange co-publications with other publishers, develop foreign distribution and translation agreements, and explore other subsidiary rights opportunities. We also want to publish books that make Swedenborg’s insights understandable to the spiritual seeker. Toward this end, we are developing engaging trade books that bring life to his amazing insights and are continuing with the ongoing Latin-to-English translation of his writings that makes his words more accessible to the modern reader.”

In the 1990s, Hill spent three years as the Foundation’s marketing manager, developing the Foundation’s marketing program and setting up national distribution for its books. Fascinated by what she had learned, she attended the Academy of the New Church Theological School in Bryn Athyn, PA, where she received a master’s degree in religious studies. After leaving the Swedenborg Foundation to establish the publishing program at Templeton Foundation Press – a non-profit publisher that explores the connections between science and religion – she remained active in the Swedenborgian community, serving on the boards of Cairnwood Mansion and Swedenborg Scientific Association.

Please visit www.swedenborg.com to learn more about the Swedenborg Foundation and its new releases, bestselling titles, and the acclaimed NEW CENTURY EDITION program that is producing new translations of Swedenborg’s works.

The Swedenborg Foundation will exhibit at several publishing events and annual conferences this year. Please stop by the Foundation’s booth at the Free Library of Philadelphia Book Festival (April 18-19), Booth #2971 at Book Expo America in New York City (May 29-31), Booth #711 at the American Academy of Religion Conference in Montreal (November 7-10), and Booth #227 at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting in New Orleans (November 20-24).