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Frances Coady

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Frances Coady
Born
London, England
EducationUniversity of Sussex; University of Essex
Occupations
  • Publisher
  • literary agent
Websitehttps://aragi.net/agents/frances-coady/

Frances Coady is a veteran British publisher.[1][2] who started Vintage paperbacks[3][4][5] in the UK before moving to New York as the publisher of Picador,[6] where she is now a literary agent at the Aragi agency.[7]

Early life

[edit]

Born in London, Frances Coady has degrees from the University of Sussex and the University of Essex.[8]

Career

[edit]

Coady began her publishing career in 1982 in London at Faber & Faber,[9][10] where she published Self-Help by Lorrie Moore,[11] The Final Passage and The European Tribe by Caryl Phillips,[12] and Edward Said's The World, the Text, and the Critic and After the Last Sky.[9] In 1987, she became editorial director of Jonathan Cape[13] and was featured in "The Powers That Will Be – We Choose the People Who Will Run Britain In the Nineties"[14] in The Sunday Times Magazine. In 1989, she became the founding publisher of Vintage paperbacks[15][3][16]"whose stunning success launched a thousand embarrassing moments in editorial conferences throughout Britain", according to The Independent.[17] She continued to edit and publish authors including Edward Said (Culture and Imperialism);[18] Salman Rushdie (The Moor's Last Sigh)[19][20][21] and John Pilger[22](A Secret Country).

In 1993, Coady became the publisher[23] of the newly created literary division of Random House UK, and "one of the most powerful women in British publishing".[17] She left Random House to relaunch Granta Books[24] as a fully independent publishing house publishing in 1997.[2][25]

In 2000, Coady moved to New York to become the publisher of Picador USA,[26] an imprint of the Macmillan Group, which she turned into a paperback house with bestsellers and award-winning authors including Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay;[27] Per Petterson's Out Stealing Horses,[28] Edmund De Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes[29] and Edward St Aubyn's Patrick Melrose Novels.[30]

She also published Frances Coady Books within Henry Holt and Farrar Straus & Giroux,[31] including Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine;[32][33] Richard Powers' Generosity[34] and; Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli.[35] Vintage originals included The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg[36] and Esi Edugyan's Half-Blood Blues.[37] In September 2012, Coady joined Scott Rudin and Barry Diller of IAC to found a new publishing house, Brightline,[38] which became Atavist Books.[39] Atavist Books launched in 2014 with Karen Russell's Sleep Donation[40]

As a literary agent at Aragi, Coady's authors include: Sharon Olds; Claudia Rankine; Ocean Vuong; Michael Cunningham, and Rebecca Solnit.[41]

Awards and distinctions

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Coady is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Personal life

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Coady is married to the novelist Peter Carey.[42]

References

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  1. ^ Kellaway, Lucy (14 July 1993). "Women at the Top, Female progress". The Financial Times.
  2. ^ a b "Author Approved Matt Seaton meets Frances Coady the new editorial director of Granta Books". Vogue Profile. January 1997.
  3. ^ a b "A new Vintage Liz Thomson chronicles the birth a new trade paperback imprint". Publishing News. June 1990.
  4. ^ Who, Who's (25 January 2018). Who's who 2018 : an annual biographical dictionary (One hundred and seventieth year of issue ed.). [London]. ISBN 9781472935014. OCLC 1014181885.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Cassell & the Publishers Association directory of publishing, 1990. Cassell Ltd. (Fifteenth ed.). London: Cassell. 1989. ISBN 978-0304318872. OCLC 21220244.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  6. ^ "Change Makers". Publishers Weekly. 30 November 2009.
  7. ^ "FRANCES COADY". ARAGI INC. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  8. ^ Who's Who 2019. A & C Black Bloomsbury Publishing plc Oxford University Press. 2019.
  9. ^ a b "The History of Faber: 1980s". Faber & Faber Blog. Archived from the original on 8 July 2019. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  10. ^ Who, Who's (25 January 2018). Who's who 2018 : an annual biographical dictionary (One hundred and seventieth year of issue ed.). [London]. ISBN 9781472935014. OCLC 1014181885.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  11. ^ Faber, Toby (30 April 2019). Faber & Faber: The Untold Story of a Great Publishing House. Faber & Faber. ISBN 9780571339068.
  12. ^ Phillips, Caryl (13 September 2017). The European Tribe. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ISBN 9780525562801.
  13. ^ "Top Cape job goes to Coady". Publishing News. 22 November 1987.
  14. ^ "The Powers that Will Be". The Sunday Times Magazine. 22 November 1987.
  15. ^ O'Kelly, Lisa (19 September 1990). "A paperback publisher raising its shelf-esteem". The Independent.
  16. ^ ILMP 1990 : International literary market place ; 25th anniversary. R.R. Bowker Company. New York: R.R. Bowker Co. 1989. ISBN 978-0835226189. OCLC 20928914.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  17. ^ a b Durrant, Sabine (21 February 1994). "POWER & INFLUENCE IN THE ARTS: BOOKS / Contesting the cover charge". The Independent. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  18. ^ "Full text of "Culture And Imperialism By Edward W. Said"". archive.org. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  19. ^ Elie, Paul (29 April 2014). "Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Martin Amis Recall Surviving the Satanic Verses Fatwa". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  20. ^ "Looking back at Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses". The Guardian. 14 September 2012. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  21. ^ McDonald, Russell (2016). "Harnessing the Currents of Textual Fluidity: Salman Rushdie's Making of East, West". Textual Cultures. 10 (2): 76–106. doi:10.14434/textual.v10i2.19517. ISSN 1559-2936. JSTOR 26514868.
  22. ^ Pilger, John (2 September 2010). Distant Voices. Random House. ISBN 9781407086378.
  23. ^ "New Roles for Callil, Coady at Random House". The Bookseller. 30 April 1993.
  24. ^ Walsh, John (17 June 1995). "A WEEK IN BOOKS". The Independent. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  25. ^ "About Granta Books". Granta Books. Archived from the original on 21 June 2016. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  26. ^ "Change Makers: Frances Coady". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  27. ^ Chabon, Michael (2000). The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. Macmillan. ISBN 9780312282998.
  28. ^ Neal (27 April 2007). "World Voices: Norway's Per Petterson Relaxes". Adweek GalleyCat.
  29. ^ "Publishers Marketplace: Log In". www.publishersmarketplace.com. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  30. ^ "People Round-Up, Early June 2015". Publishing Trends. 4 June 2015.
  31. ^ Andriani, Lynn (30 November 2009). "Change Makers: Frances Coady". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  32. ^ "Naomi Klein, Friedman Fighter | Naomi Klein". www.naomiklein.org. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  33. ^ Klein, Naomi (1 April 2010). The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 9781429919487.
  34. ^ McInerney, Jay (1 October 2009). "Book Review | 'Generosity: An Enhancement,' by Richard Powers". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  35. ^ George, Lynell (11 May 2008). "Secrets that live in the Sunset". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  36. ^ Woodroof, Martha (6 April 2010). "Deborah Eisenberg: City Life In The Smallest Spaces". NPR.org. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  37. ^ "Esi Edugyan's Publishing Cinderella Story: Man Booker Prize Finalist ..." The New York Observer.
  38. ^ Carr, David (18 September 2012). "Media Chiefs Form Venture to E Publish". The New York Times.
  39. ^ Coffey, Michael (7 October 2013). "One Year Later, Coady's Atavist Books Set to Launch". PublishersWeekly.com. Retrieved 20 May 2019.
  40. ^ Kakutani, Michiko (2 April 2014). "Karen Russell's 'Sleep Donation'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  41. ^ "FRANCES COADY". Aragi Inc. Retrieved 10 May 2019.
  42. ^ Brockes, Emma (16 March 2012). "Peter Carey: making it up as he goes along". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 20 May 2019.