KATE STRAKER ATLANTIC BOOKS K
ate Straker’s career began with a “brilliantly varied introduction to the wider publishing industry” at arts PR agency FMcM in 2012, where she promoted literary awards, charities and industry events as well as publishers and authors. In 2015, she moved to Quarto,
before joining Atlantic as publicity manager in 2017, and being promoted to senior publicity manager in 2019. She has produced campaigns across a range of genres and publicised five of the publisher’s bestsellers in the past four years, including Oyinkan Braithwaite’s award-winning début My Sister, the Serial Killer and Chris Atkins’ prison memoir A Bit of a Stretch, which Straker was instrumental in pitching for. Her skills extend beyond big-hitters—she ran the campaigns for Atlantic’s two surprise bestsellers of 2020: John Kampfner’s Why the Germans Do It Better and Pen Vogler’s Scoff. Straker also values the cultural importance of the books she works on: “One of the joys of my role is seeing the long-term impact a successful publicity campaign has on the author.”
KATHRYN TANN PARTHIAN BOOKS
U
pon graduating, Kathryn Tann was set to join a business writing agency, but when that offer fell
through, she was drawn to a career in publishing. She gained experience remotely from her home in south Wales, eventually meeting Parthian Books director Richard Davies. In her two years with the indie, highlights have included: project managing an essay anthology from marginalised writers, Just So You Know; producing and recording Parthian’s first podcast series; commissioning an audiobook list; and overseeing the “lightning- fast” publication of Alys Morgan’s Covid-19 hospital journal. As the pandemic took hold, Tann developed the new role of reading engagement editor, growing Parthian’s online pres- ence. She has also had freelance roles for organisations such as the British Council and Wales Arts Review. Tann is now at “a crossroads”, as she is based in the north and keen to immerse herself in the local literature scene. With a passion for editing and working with authors, plus a growing interest in audio, looking ahead she’d “like to be part of something new.”
MARIANNE TATEPO EBURY PRESS/POP PRESS
I
t has been an eventful 18 months for Marianne Tatepo, who moved from Penguin Life to Ebury,
HERMIONE THOMPSON HAMISH HAMILTON H
ermione Thompson published four début novelists since being promoted to commissioning editor three years ago, and two of them (Sophie Mackintosh, Avni Doshi) have been Booker longlisted. A third, Lara Williams’ Supper Club, won the Guardian’s Not the Booker
Prize. The common thread? Thompson was the only UK editor to see their potential and offer to publish them. This fits with her role at the imprint, with which she has been since joining as an editorial assistant in 2015, of “a cham- pion of provocative and risk-taking new literary voices”. She recently published one of the most anticipated débuts of 2021, Natasha Brown’s Assembly, and that provocative nature extends to non-fiction, too, such as Rafia Zakaria’s upcoming Against White Feminism. She recently led the relaunch of the literary magazine Five Dials, angling its remit to feature writers from underrepresented backgrounds. Thompson wants to “continue editing for my whole career...I like working with authors, editing books, and finding people who love those books.”
TheBookseller.com
made a string of big acquisitions and, in her spare time, founded network- ing and mentoring group Black Agents & Editors, plus guest-edited the The Bookseller’s inaugural Black issue. Tatepo also makes a bit of history, being just the second person (after Nikesh Shukla) to appear in The Bookseller’s Rising Stars and 150 lists in a 12-month period. The acquisitions demonstrate her proactive publishing: buying Sharon Jones’ TikTok sensa- tion Burn After Writing from micro- press Carpet Bombing Culture; winning at auction Paula Sutton’s lifestyle cum happiness guide, Hill House Living; and in what assuredly will be one of autumn’s biggest books, signing “I May Destroy You” creator Michaela Coel’s Manifesto, after she contacted the star directly. Brussels native Tatepo started her in-house career at Fourth Estate/William Collins before moving to PRH, and non-fiction has been the draw, as “you get a lot more of an opportunity to steer where the book is going”.
17
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
