Price leaves Hodder for W&N as Franklin and Andornino promoted

Maddy Price is moving from Hodder to join Weidenfeld & Nicolson as its new non-fiction editorial director, while there are promotions for Lettice Franklin and Federico Andornino at the Orion imprint.

Price, currently senior commissioning editor at Hodder, will start in September, reporting to publisher Jenny Lord.

Joining Hodder from Transworld in 2012, Price’s authors have included Lucy Worsley, Tracy Borman, Fern Riddell and Annabel Venning. She has also worked with authors including David Starkey, Robert Peston, Kate Adie and Ruby Wax.

She said: “I have loved working at Hodder for the past seven years, and I would especially like to thank Rupert Lancaster and Rowena Webb for being wonderful colleagues and mentors to me. I am now thrilled to be joining Jenny and the team at W&N, an imprint with both fantastic heritage and an exciting future. I can’t wait to get started.”

Lord added: “Maddy is an incredibly creative and thoughtful non-fiction publisher and we are hugely excited to be welcoming her to the W&N team. Her passion for history publishing, in particular, is infectious and her years of experience working with an impressive list of authors will be so valuable in this crucial time for the imprint as we look to strengthen and grow our history output – a genre that has long been associated with W&N.”

It comes after the fiction and non-fiction teams were brought together at W&N under Lord in January. Price now completes a commissioning team comprising Alan Samson, Lettice Franklin, Federico Andornino and Lee Brackstone. Editorial director Paul Murphy’s departure was announced in May.

Today, W&N announced commissioning editors Franklin and Bookseller Rising Star Andornino have been promoted to editorial directors.

Franklin joined the imprint in 2017 after four years at Fourth Estate. In 2020 she will publish W&N’s lead fiction title Exciting Times by Naoise Dolan, which she acquired in a seven-way auction from Harriet Moore. She is building a list including Claire Lombardo, whose debut The Most Fun We Ever Had has just been published, Niamh Campbell, Charlie Gilmour, Halle Butler and Lauren Aimee Curtis.

Andornino joined the imprint in 2017, taking on Téa Obreht, Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Gillian Flynn, spear-heading the revival of the imprint’s translated fiction strategy and acquiring new talent including Alys Conran and Charlotte Wood.

Lord said: “Lettice and Fede are two of the most talented fiction publishers of their generation. In their relatively short time at the imprint, they have made a dramatic impact at W&N – refreshing and reshaping the fiction list in a very exciting way. We are delighted to be able to recognise their considerable talents with these two promotions.”

Earlier this week, Orion also announced a string of promotions and appointments, including hiring Francesca Pearce as senior publicity manager and moving Leanne Oliver up to publicity director.