Mount appointed Picador publisher as Gwyn Jones departs

Picador publisher Philip Gwyn Jones is leaving the company, to be succeeded by Viking publisher Mary Mount.

By mutual agreement Gwyn Jones, who joined Picador in June 2020, will leave “to pursue other opportunities” following a review of the literary imprint’s direction “and the leadership required for its future”, Pan Macmillan said.

During his time at Picador, he led commemorative activity and new publishing around two major anniversaries – Picador’s 50th and Picador Poetry’s 25th – and the imprint saw several titles top the bestseller lists and compete for literary prizes. 

However, he was also in place during the controversy over Kate Clanchy’s book Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me, which eventually saw author and publisher part ways. Gwyn Jones was criticised over, and later apologised for, remarks he made to the Telegraph about the book and the way it was handled.

New appointments under his leadership included editorial director Andrea Henry, poetry editor Colette Bryce who joined on the retirement of the poetry list’s founding editor Don Paterson, Anne Meadows who is soon to move over from Granta as editorial director, and editorial assistants Salma Begum and Orla King.

He said of his departure: “I am immensely proud of the publishing the excellent Picador team did over the past two years, in exceptionally testing circumstances. I shall be sad to leave them, but am certain they will only go on from strength to strength under the new leadership.” 

Jeremy Trevathan, m.d. of Pan Macmillan’s adult book publishing, commented: “Philip leaves a strong team behind him and we will say our farewells to him in due course, with our thanks and every good wish for the future.”

Mount has been appointed publisher after 21 years at Viking. She will join Picador and become part of the senior team at Pan Macmillan in September following Gwyn Jones’ planned departure at the end of August. 

At Viking she has launched the careers of prize-winning authors including Yaa Gyasi, Hisham Matar, Nina Stibbe and Miranda Cowley Heller. Most recently, she commissioned and published Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireland – which won Best Narrative Non-Fiction at the Nibbies – and oversaw the implementation of an educational programme to get class sets of the book into 500 secondary schools in the UK, a donation of 15,000 copies overall. 

Mount started her publishing career at Pan Macmillan in 1995 and during this time she acquired and published both the Booker Prize-shortlisted Trezza Azzopardi and top 10 non-fiction bestseller Alexandra Fuller, as well as publishing William Fiennes’ first book The Snow Geese. With Picador, she also managed the poetry list and helped launch Picador India with Picador’s then publisher Peter Straus. 

Trevathan commented: “In Picador’s 50th year it feels not a moment too soon to be announcing the appointment of the first woman to take the helm at Picador. Mary is an outstanding publisher of both fiction and non-fiction whose publishing ethos could not be better aligned to Picador’s aims for the future. Her experience helping to nurture and develop the editorial team at Viking makes me excited for the potential of her collaboration with our brilliant editors and publishers at Picador.” 

Mount added: "I have had 21 wonderful years at Viking and had the privilege of working with extraordinary writers. It is a huge wrench to leave them behind and to say goodbye to my fantastic colleagues. My first editorial job was at Picador and it is exciting to return there, to a list of groundbreaking and thrilling writers and an editorial team I admire enormously."

The changes follow Joanna Prior’s arrival from Penguin General earlier this year as Pan Macmillan’s new c.e.o.