You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Topiwala and Whelan promoted in the Hodder & Stoughton non-fiction editorial team
Hodder & Stoughton has promoted Kirty Topiwala to executive publisher of non-fiction, while Lauren Whelan has been promoted to publisher of non-fiction.
In her new role Topiwala will have strategic and managerial responsibility for the commissioning team, including Rupert Lancaster, Rowena Webb, Huw Armstrong and Anna Baty.
She joined Hodder from Wellcome in 2019 to lead the non-fiction imprint and acquired bestsellers such as Lucy Easthope’s When the Dust Settles and Philipp Dettmer’s Immune.
The main Hodder non-fiction list—home to commercial hits by Lucy Worsley, Anne Glenconner, Paris Fury, and Sarah Gilbert and Catherine Green—will be further streamlined into distinct imprints, each with a clear acquisition and genre focus, the publisher said.
Whelan moves across from her current role as associate publisher at Yellow Kite and will launch a new commercial non-fiction imprint, details of which will be announced soon, The Bookseller understands.
Whelan has acquired a string of bestsellers during her tenure at Yellow Kite including Twochubbycubs, All On the Board, Slimming Eats and Steven Bartlett’s Happy Sexy Millionaire. In her new role, she will report directly to Topiwala. Both promotions are effective immediately.
Topiwala said: “I’m tremendously excited about this role and our plans for Hodder’s non-fiction. It is so rewarding to work with Katie, Lauren and the other talented editors in the team and I’m looking forward to taking our exceptional list of books and authors in ambitious new directions.”
Whelan said: “Being so involved in the mission and amazing growth of the Yellow Kite imprint has been such a creative and fulfilling experience and I’m thrilled to be starting a new venture alongside Kirty and the talented non-fiction team. This is a momentous time for Hodder & Stoughton, our readers and our authors and I’m really excited to be a part of it.”
Katie Espiner, c.e.o., said of the promotions: “Hodder & Stoughton has an enviable reputation for publishing some of the most compelling and bestselling non-fiction in the industry. Kirty and Lauren are both brilliant, ambitious, energetic publishers and I can’t wait to work alongside them and with our incoming m.d. Oli Malcolm, as they lead this next phase of our non-fiction publishing.”
