HQ's Clio Cornish joins Michael Joseph

HQ commissioning editor Clio Cornish is joining Michael Joseph in a newly created role as editorial director this September after seven years with HarperCollins.

Cornish will join the Penguin imprint on 16th September and will report to publishing director Maxine Hitchcock.

After first joining the books trade as a bookseller at Waterstones Gower Street, Cornish joined Harlequin in 2012 and began commissioning commercial fiction when the company was acquired by HarperCollins and relaunched as HQ in 2016. She was promoted to commissioning editor, alongside fellow HQ editor Charlotte Mursell, last November.

She has published Mel McGrath’s The Guilty Party, June Sarpong’s Independent Bookshop Week-shortlisted Diversify, and Khurrum Rahman, whose debut East of Hounslow is shortlisted for this year’s Theakston Crime Novel of the Year award. She also commissioned This Lovely City by Louise Hare and The Illustrated Child by Polly Crosby, two major launch titles for HQ next year. 

Cornish said of leaving HarperCollins for the newly created role: “I am enormously proud to have been part of HQ, whose innovation and energy know no bounds – and I will miss my authors and colleagues hugely.

“But I can’t imagine a more exciting opportunity than joining Maxine and her brilliant team. The confidence, ambition and creativity with which Michael Joseph approach their publishing is legendary, and nothing short of inspiring – I’m so looking forward to getting started and bringing new talent to their outstanding list.”