Sphere promotes Barrett and recruits Rose

Sphere non-fiction has promoted senior editor Emily Barrett to editorial director and recruited Michael O'Mara's Fiona Rose to the team.

Barrett, who recently revealed she won a 12-way auction for Ant and Dec's first book in 10 years, joined Sphere last summer. She has published 52 Times Britain was a Bellend by James Felton and Will I Ever Pee Alone Again? by Emma Conway, and this year will also publish Sunburn, the new book from James Felton, Parting Words by Benjamin Ferencz, and The Louder I Will Sing by Lee Lawrence.

Barrett will continue to report to Cath Burke, deputy managing director at Little, Brown Book Group and Sphere executive publisher, and Sphere editorial assistant Ruth Jones will report to Sphere Fiction publisher Lucy Malagoni and to Barrett.

"Emily is a brilliant colleague and we are so thrilled to be promoting her," said Burke. "She has some incredible titles publishing this year and next and we can’t wait for readers all over the world to enjoy them."

Rose, currently at Michael O’Mara, is meanwhile joining the Sphere non-fiction team as commissioning editor from 20th April, also reporting to Burke. Before joining Michael O’Mara last summer, Rose was at Hodder non-fiction for seven years, working on such books as the autobiographies of Sachin Tendulkar and Lynda Bellingham, The Boy on the Shed by Paul Ferris, the Yorkshire Vet series by Julian Norton and Leap by Geva Mentor, which was longlisted for Sport Autobiography of the Year Award.

Rose said: "I’ve enjoyed my time at Michael O’Mara, I'm sorry to leave behind some brilliant books and colleagues, but the opportunity to work with Cath and her fantastic team at Sphere was too good to pass up. I absolutely can’t wait to get started."

Burke added: "The Sphere team has an incredible spirit of ambition, creativity and can-do attitude within it, they inspire me every day. We are delighted to be promoting Emily at Sphere – and also Rhiannon Smith at Sphere and Fleet – in recognition of all they do and as part of our plans for growth at Little, Brown, all ahead of our hugely exciting autumn of non-fiction publishing ahead. And I am especially thrilled to be welcoming Fiona to Little, Brown – and enormous credit to Fiona who remains undaunted about starting work with us whilst we are all working from home. I am immensely looking forward to seeing the publishing from this dynamic team."