Orion promotes W&N's Paul Murphy to editorial director

Orion Publishing Group has promoted three members of its Weidenfeld & Nicolson (W&N) non-fiction editorial department, including senior editor Paul Murphy, who has moved up to become editorial director.

Murphy started his publishing career working for Mainstream Publishing in Edinburgh and, after a short stint at Little, Brown, joined Orion in 2010 to work in the then-paperbacks division, moving across to the W&N Non-Fiction team in April 2015. He has made a number of acquisitions, including a reissue of TH White’s The Goshawk, Connectography by Parag Khanna and a new biography of James Brown by National Book Award-winner James McBride. According to Orion, he "brings a wide-ranging knowledge of a large number of subjects to the list, from current affairs to science to sport to popular culture".

Assistant editor Holly Harley has meanwhile been promoted to the role of editor and editorial assistant Simon Wright to assistant editor.

​Harley joined Orion in 2012 as an editorial assistant, working with publisher for non-fiction Alan Samson and former W&N editorial director Bea Hemming. She has worked on a wide range of books, recently including Richard Dawkins and Yan Wong's updated Ancestor's Tale, The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore, and, just longlisted for the Bailie Gifford prize, East West Street by Philippe Sands. She has also worked on cat-based humour books If It Fits, I Sits and and My Cat is a Dick. Following Harley's acquisition of Sarah Weinman’s historical true crime Among the Wholesome Children in July, she will begin to commission titles for the W&N list.

Wright, who as editorial assistant to Samson has been with Orion since 2014, has worked on books by authors as diverse as Antonia Fraser, Richard Coles, and Roy Keane and Roddy Doyle, and a list including biographies of Evelyn Waugh and Maggie Smith. He will work with historians Liza Picard and Chris Skidmore on their next books and has recently acquired his first titles for the W&N list.

Each will continue to report to Alan Samson, publisher for non-fiction. He commented: "I am delighted to announce these promotions. W&N is a close-knit team, and my three colleagues richly deserve this recognition of their industry, editorial acumen and creativity."