S&S bolsters fiction team

Simon & Schuster UK has made major changes to its editorial fiction team, with Clare Hey promoted to editorial director with immediate effect and Rowan Cope (pictured) joining as editorial director from Little, Brown, as the publisher bids to concentrate more on literary publishing.
 
Hey has been with the company for two and a half years and was previously senior editor. Highlights of Hey’s work this year include a 50% increase in Milly Johnson’s print sales with the publication of The Teashop on the Corner and success with new authors Susan Elliot Wright and Sophia Tobin. Nadifa Mohamed was selected as a Granta Best Young British Novelist in 2013 and her new novel, The Orchard of Lost Souls, won a Somerset Maugham Award as well as being longlisted for this year’s Dylan Thomas Prize.
 
Publishing director Jo Dickinson said: “Clare has an extremely savvy commercial eye and a huge breadth of publishing experience. She has commissioned wonderful novels for the list, ranging from commercial fiction to book club titles, and published them all with passion, flair, creativity and brilliant attention to detail.”
 
Cope is moving to S&S UK from Little, Brown and Virago, where she was senior commissioning editor. She will report to Dickinson and focus predominantly on literary publishing. She will start her new role on 13th October 2014.
 
Cope joined the editorial department at Abacus and Virago in 2006. She has since worked with authors including Alexander McCall Smith, Simon Mawer and most recently Donna Tartt on the publication of The Goldfinch, as well as acquiring fiction and non-fiction in English and in translation. She published Tracey Thorn's memoir Bedsit Disco Queen and Piper Kerman's memoir Orange Is the New Black, the inspiration for the Netflix series. Before joining Little, Brown, she worked in Paris, where fiction in translation was a particular interest, and prior to that she was rights manager at David Godwin Associates.
 
Dickinson said: “Rowan brings a keen literary eye, commercial nous and a wealth of experience to the role, and I can’t wait for her to join the team. We intend to develop this area of the list further and Rowan is the right person to lead it”.
 
Cope added: “I’m extremely excited to join Simon & Schuster and to help shape their amazing fiction list. I will, of course, be sad to say goodbye to the wonderful colleagues and authors I’ve had the real privilege to work with during my time at Little, Brown and Virago. But the opportunity to be a part of Simon & Schuster’s brilliant publishing team was too good to miss, and I’m very much looking forward to embarking on this new adventure with them.”
 
As previously reported, Jessica Leeke, senior commissioning editor at S&S UK, will be leaving to join Penguin Random House division Michael Joseph as editorial director, starting on 15th September. In the non-fiction team,  Mike Jones, formerly editorial director for non-fiction, left S&S to join Profile in June. Meanwhile Abigail Bergstrom was promoted to commissioning editor for non-fiction in July.