Lyall Grant moves to Scholastic UK as fiction editorial director

Scholastic UK has appointed Polly Lyall Grant as fiction editorial director. 

She starts her new role on 12th June, after eight years at Hachette Children’s Group, latterly as senior commissioning editor, where she has acquired and published authors such as Rosie Jones with her debut series The Amazing Edie Eckhart, Nadine Aisha Jassat’s The Stories That Grandma Forgot, Tanya Byrne who was shortlisted for the YA Book Prize for Afterlove, and Dean Atta who won the Stonewall Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Waterstones Book Prize for The Black Flamingo. She will report to Lauren Fortune, fiction publisher, 

Lyall Grant said: “I’ve loved building my list at Hachette, and I will miss my authors and colleagues greatly. However, I am incredibly excited to be joining Scholastic who have a wonderful reputation for putting the child reader at the heart of everything they do. Lauren’s clear and exciting vision for the fiction list is hugely inspirational and motivating. I can’t wait to work with some of the amazing authors already in the Scholastic stable, and to put my own stamp on the YA and children’s lists. I am hugely grateful to Lauren for entrusting me with this role, and I can’t wait to get started.” 

Fortune added: “I am delighted to be welcoming Polly to the fiction editorial team at Scholastic. She has an exceptional acquiring eye, thinking proactively and creatively about publishing the commercial, child-focused and standout debut voices the market needs. She has a lot of fans – authors, agents, peers – in this industry and I can’t wait to see what brilliant publishing she does here.”