The announcement that David Kent will be leaving HarperCollins Canada at the end of the year is not the only news shaking publishing north of the border this week. Simon & Schuster Canada has confirmed that Martha Sharpe, editorial director, and Alison Clark, associate publisher, have left the company. An S&S spokesperson said the publisher plans to find replacements for both women.
Sharpe and Clark were hired following the decision by S&S last May to add original Canadian publishing to its operations. Before starting the original publishing program, S&S Canada had focused on the local marketing of titles published by S&S units outside the country.
Kevin Hanson, president and publisher of S&S Canada said, in a statement, that the company is "committed to building an enduring and dynamic publishing program." He added that, supporting this push, the house has "a significant list of both recognizable Canadian figures and new voices."
Among the books already on the S&S Canada list are Andrew Pyper's The Damned (which is a follow-up to the author's 2013 bestseller, The Demonologist), and the memoir from hockey player Tie Domi. Other books to be released in 2015, Hanson said, “will be announced in the coming months.”
