After 17 years as the associate publisher of children’s publishing house Annick Press, Colleen MacMillan will retire on February 3, 2017. The move means that Annick Press, which has its main office in Toronto, will permanently close its Vancouver outpost at the end of December.
MacMillan has been in Canadian publishing for nearly 40 years. Before joining Annick in 1999, MacMillan worked for nearly 10 years as editorial director and then acting publishing director at Western Producer Prairie Books in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. She then spent nearly another decade as publisher of Whitecap Books in Vancouver, B.C. She joined Annick after receiving a call from Annick cofounder Anne Millyard, who put MacMillan in touch with Annick cofounder (and current director) Rick Wilks. She took over MacMIllan's role following her retirement.
Wilks didn’t know MacMillan personally back then, but he knew her reputation. “We shared a vision of publishing and where we saw Annick going,” says Wilks. “It was a great meeting. I really felt excited about being compatible with her, so I said, ‘Sure, let’s do this.’ ”
Since that time, MacMillan has acquired many books for the publishing house, working with authors such as Tanya Lloyd Kyi (The Blue Jean Book), Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton (A Stranger at Home), Bill Richardson (But If They Do), and Marilee Peters (Making It Right: Building Peace, Settling Conflict).
Upon retirement, MacMillan, now 66, says she will spend some of her time volunteering for the North Vancouver District Public Library Board and the Special Olympics.
Although Annick’s Vancouver office will close, its main Toronto headquarters will stay put, and the number of books published will remain the same. at about 25 to 30 annually. The company’s two permanent B.C.-based employees, associate editors and project managers Toni Banyard and Paula Ayer, will continue to work for Annick.
Managing editor Katie Hearn, who has been with Annick for eight years, will be promoted to an associate publisher-type role, though the title has not yet been determined. Hearn will also accompany MacMillan to next April’s Bologna Book Fair, to be introduced to her foreign rights network. Replacing Hearn as managing editor will be new hire Kaela Cadieux, who started this week, and who comes from Penguin Random House Canada, where she worked as a paperback publishing assistant.
