Little, Brown's Rhiannon Smith promoted to editorial director

Rhiannon Smith, who works across the Fleet and Sphere imprints at Little, Brown, has been promoted to editorial director.

Smith has been commissioning for four years and counts among her successes for the Sphere imprint: Lucy Watson and her bestselling vegan cookery titles; Professor David Wilson’s My Life with Murderers and his upcoming Signs of Murder; and mortician Carla Valentine, whose next book, Murder Isn’t Easy, out this autumn, is an exploration of death in the novels of Agatha Christie.

Cath Burke, deputy m.d. of Little, Brown, said: "we are delighted to be promoting Rhiannon at Little, Brown; she is the most wonderful colleague at Sphere and we are enormously excited about her publishing this year and plans for the future, too."

At Fleet, Smith's acquisitions meanwhile include Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler, a debut shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year; and Wine Girl by Victoria James, out tomorrow. In 2021 she will publish Slug, by the performance poet Hollie McNish, author of Nobody Told Me.

Ursula Doyle, publisher of Fleet, said: "Rhiannon’s wide-ranging taste, discerning eye, commercial instincts and deep understanding of the publishing process has enriched Fleet enormously over the last couple of years. I can’t wait to see what she will do next."