18th July 2025 Rising Stars 22
Maria Omena-Neale SAGE
In 2016, Maria Omena-Neale left her native Brazil to follow a dream. At the induction for her degree in English literature and creative writing at Coventry University she was asked what she wanted to do after graduation. “I want to work in book publishing,” she said. That laser focus led to a marketing assistant temp role at SAGE in 2020, where she has remained since, working her way up to marketing manager where she leads on education textbooks, study-skills guides and books that centre social justice. Omena-Neale is now preparing for campaigns on SAGE’S upcoming Social Science for Social Justice and What Do We Know and What Should We Do About…? series: “These books really speak to me because they’re about making knowledge more accessible and bringing in fresh perspectives.” Looking ahead, she envisions herself “creating and strategising campaigns for books I really believe in” but is also “passionate about shaping the industry into something even more inclusive, creative, and forward-looking”.
Coco Omer Freelance
The daughter of first-generation Somalian immigrants, Coco Omer credits her parents with nurturing her love of reading and lecturers Cat Mitchell and David Barker for driving her career ambitions. Alongside her MA in publishing, she launched a BookTok account in 2022 that now has more than 80,000 followers. Working with Penguin’s Lit in Colour programme led to an editorial role at Cornerstone, where she helped acquire books from Chloe Liese and Jenna Levine. She then joined Books2Door (launching Coco’s Collection for the e-tailer) and “levelled up”, interviewing authors including Stanley Tucci, working with brands such as Netflix, being nominated at the TikTok Book Awards and judging for the Nibbies, as well as hosting the awards’ golden carpet. Next up is a new series interviewing authors in bookshops and penning her own romantasy. She voices a desire for “more stories that focus on Black joy”, hoping to show others “that if this Midlands-based Somali girl can make something of herself in this industry, they can too”.
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21 21 Joanna Lee Scribner
As a child, Joanna Lee was brought to Sheffield from Korea by her émigré parents; reading in English, therefore, was “very much self- directed”. Libraries helped instil her love for books, a passion she took to the University of Cambridge. Although she knew no one from home who made a career in the arts, the “opportunity to shape what ends up on people’s shelves” was her calling. She bagged her first full-time job at Faber in 2017, later crossing the aisle to Curtis Brown. She was lured back to publishing to commission for Atlantic in 2022 and last year became senior commissioning editor at Scribner where, says boss Sophie Missing, Lee is “helping to define the future shape of the imprint”. Lee also co-founded the East and South East Asian literary festival, which continues to thrive in its fourth year with a recent expansion to host satellite events with the Cheltenham and Edinburgh festivals. She concludes: “I’ve held lots of different roles, but I’ve always been driven by the books that I love.”
38 Carolina Parodi Fitzcarraldo Editions 24
Carolina Parodi describes her life in publishing as an “independent- corporate-independent palindrome”. The Buenos Aires native arrived in the UK in 2017 with a dream to work in the industry, interning at Ryland Peters and Small and (then-indie) Kyle Books; moving to marketing and publicity at Octopus; then back to indies for sales and operations managing roles at Europa Editions and Fitzcarraldo Editions. Her last two moves came about partly because of the Covid-19 pandemic, which made her reassess and switch to her true love, literature in translation. Her current operations director role is crucial to Fitzcarraldo, a house noted for the quality of its products and its fleet of Nobel laureates. In the 10 months since joining she has overseen two warehouse moves, a change of printers, the re-launch of the website, the launch of a poetry range and restructure of the audio list. Parodi is happy to be back in the indie sector, “where risks are taken (at great expense) to publish work we believe in”.
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Features
Rising Stars
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