Thorogood and Knowles to join Canongate

Canongate has made two new senior appointments to its seven-strong editorial team.

Simon Thorogood will be joining Canongate as editorial director at the end of August and Hannah Knowles will be joining as senior commissioning editor from November.

After working at Transworld for 16 years, where he was currently editorial director at Bantam Press, Thorogood was latterly publisher for non-fiction at Headline, where he acquired writers including Chris Anderson, Jon Butterworth and Alok Jha.  

Knowles leaves Octopus where she was commissioning editor, specialising in popular culture and illustrated books, and commissioned titles by Scroobius Pip, Huey Morgan and Ana Matronic.

Both roles will be based in Canongate’s London office and report into publishing director, Francis Bickmore.

Bickmore said: “We are thrilled to be strengthening the editorial team here with two such experienced, fastidious and dexterous editors. Simon has twenty years’ publishing expertise, spanning serious and award-winning non-fiction to quality thrillers. Hannah brings creativity, imaginative commissioning and an energetic connection to pop culture.”

Thorogood said: “I have been reading Canongate books for the whole of my career and watching with admiration the innovation, authenticity and passion they bring to their publishing. I couldn’t be more excited to be joining the team.”

Knowles said: “I’m thrilled to be joining such a creative, innovative company and am looking forward to this next step. I will be extremely sad to leave the brilliant team at Octopus, where I’ve been able to work with such wonderful authors over the last three years. The opportunity to work at Canongate was one I simply couldn’t refuse, and I’m excited to be a part of their future.”