Announcement day at LAT

This year's Los Angeles Times Book Festival at UCLA will be April 29-30—no repeat of last year's awkward overlap with Passover, which cost the festival some authors and probably some attendance. The book prizes will be handed out April 28 in Royce Hall. Author and political commentator Cokie Roberts will emcee this year.

Another Times personnel shift was announced late this afternoon: Mary Braswell, the deputy foreign editor for nine years, is moving to a new slot called senior editor for projects. According to the posting from managing editor Doug Frantz, "Braswell's primary job will be to make sure that our stories are delivered in a timely fashion to the other Tribune papers and the 600 clients of the LAT-Washington Post news service. In that capacity, Braswell will work directly with the department heads and deputies in Los Angeles and Washington. The ultimate goal is to insure that Times stories, particularly the distinctive work of our foreign, national and Washington staffs, are as widely and readily available as possible for use in other Tribune papers."

A replacement was not named, but one of the scenarios swirling around the building today has Metro deputy editor David Lauter moving to the foreign desk and Sports project editor Steve Clow going to Metro. Newsroom talk predicts that daily Calendar editor Alice Short (who also edits Weekend Calendar) will move into Metro when she returns from a personal leave.

Also: There's a farewell reception tonight at the paper for Metro reporters and editors who took the year-end buyout or are retiring. City Editor Shelby Grad emailed the staff a list with the departeds' years of service:

Wendy Thermos -- 15 yrs
Pat Biederman -- 21 yrs
Nora Zamichow -- 16 yrs
Daryl Kelley -- 21 yrs
Larry Stammer -- 30 yrs
David Rosenzweig -- 34 yrs
Eric Malnic -- 47 yrs

plus, desk assistants:
Rodney Bosch -- 12 years
Maria Lopez -- 25 years
Josh Farmer -- 5 years

Earlier today:
Deputy sports editor Dave Morgan goes to Yahoo
LAT Magazine renamed West, gets contributors