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01.07.22 ISSN 0006-7539
PP06–17
IN DEPTH
London Book Fair Special Rising Stars
at the forefront of that colouring book craze and judging the Costa Children’s Book Award in the year that Frances Hardinge won. In publishing, it’s always been the
authors I have been able to meet and work with: publishing the first ever beauty book specifically catering to women of colour, editing my first manuscript (the relief of realising I could edit a manuscript) and that book going on to be shortlisted for prizes… it’s been a pretty incredible decade. I can’t wait to see what’s next.
3 How do you hope your career develops?
I hope I always get to work with incredible people—that’s what I have loved most about my career so far. The team I work with at Bonnier is full of brilliant (and very funny) people, and I feel so lucky to get to work with them and learn from them.
4 How do you hope the industry develops?
Melissa Cox Zaffre
Publishing director
Class of 2013
Melissa Cox led Waterstones’ chil- dren’s department when named a Rising Star, before
subsequently being promoted to head of books and being selected to the (then) Bookseller 100—the list was later expanded to 150 book trade staffers. Cox crossed the aisle in 2016 to join Hodder as editorial director and last year moved to her current role at Bonnier’s Zaffre division, where she is building a commercial list as its publishing director.
1 Has Rising Stars been useful for you?
I ended up moving out of children’s and into different roles within the Waterstones team, my last bookselling role being head of books in 2015. That was just two years after the Rising Stars nod, which retrospectively makes me sound incredibly ambitious, a bookselling Eve Harrington, but I always just wanted to work with good people on good books, so every move I’ve made has been inspired by that. The Rising Stars recognition has been a permanent fixture on my CV, I am so grateful to have it on there. It means a lot to industry colleagues and definitely helped me grow my profile.
2 What are some of your post- Rising Stars highlights?
I have been so lucky: since the Rising Stars I have been able to work on a huge number of exciting books and projects. At Waterstones it was probably things like introducing the Children’s Book of the Month, being
TheBookseller.com
The industry has changed dramatically since I started out in it—in ways that were completely necessary and reflect the world around us. However, I’ve noticed a fixation on youth and disruption, one that reflects our wider culture and the influence of tech. This kind of “out with the old” attitude sometimes seems to tip towards a lack of appreciation for experience—and the professionalism learned from those decades of experience. I love innovation; I’m a big social
media user and I think there is plenty to be excited about in the new and the bold, but we are working on a piece of tech that was largely perfected in its physical form hundreds of years ago, so maybe there is room for learning from both the old and the new in publishing.
5 What are your ambitions for this year’s London
Book Fair? Like most editors, I will be heading to London Book Fair, and cannot wait for those sweet 3 p.m. Diet Cokes and The Bookseller Dailies. The fair is a brilliant opportunity to catch up with colleagues from all over the world and talk with people who you usually only get to talk to via email. It’s my first LBF at Zaffre, so I’m going to be looking to buy rather than to sell, and it definitely helps to have a profile when trying to book meetings. I was lucky to get introduced to the industry very early on via Rising Stars, and I really do think it was a significant turning point in my career.
Rising Stars Class of 2023
Rising Stars Submissions information for the Class of 2023
Submissions for the Rising Stars Class of 2023 are open from today (31st March), with the list being revealed on 30th June. To nominate a colleague,
or yourself, send a testimonial outlining their/your accom- plishments to tom.tivnan@
thebookseller.com. Entries must be received
by 12th May.
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