Manie Barron, agent and editor, dies at age 55

[January 13, 2011]  NEW YORK (AP) -- Manie Barron, an editor and literary agent who worked on and advocated for African-American books through much of a 23-year publishing career, has died at 55.

Baron's widow, Wendalyn R. Nichols, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Baron died Saturday at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He was being treated for lung cancer.

A native of New York's Harlem section who studied acting and accounting at City College of New York, Baron held numerous positions in the industry, from sales at the since-closed Doubleday bookstore to the phone sales team at Random House, where he moved into editing. Baron later was an agent at William Morris, then at the Menza Barron Agency, which he co-founded with Claudia Menza.

Authors he worked with included vampire novelist L.A. Banks and fiction writer Guy Johnson, the son of Maya Angelou.

[Associated Press; By HILLEL ITALIE]

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