Nan Graham will step down as publisher of Scribner in 2025, per Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp, with S&S slated to begin an “open and thorough search for the next publisher.” Graham will remain with the imprint next year, per a release, assuming an as-yet-unnamed role “focusing on editing her existing authors and acquiring new titles to enhance Scribner’s list.”
The news comes just before the one-year anniversary of the completion of S&S’s sale to private equity firm KKR. It also follows a series of leadership changes at the publisher level that includes Sean Manning succeeding Karp as publisher of the S&S flagship imprint, Tim O’Connell taking the reins at Saga Press, and the relaunch of the Summit Books imprint under Judy Clain.
“I loved being the editor-in-chief of Scribner beginning thirty years ago, and I've loved being the publisher of Scribner, building a superb team that excels in every aspect of publishing,” said Graham, in a statement. “I've been incredibly fortunate to edit my own list of stellar authors and to help launch so many transformative, bestselling, award-winning books from other Scribner editors. I'm proud of making Scribner an imprint where editors, publicists and marketers come of age and thrive, working on behalf of writers who have flourished here. Now it's time to turn my attention more fully, once again, to the writers I’ve worked with for years, and to finding the occasional writer new to me and to Scribner. I’ll continue to champion the Scribner imprint and our singularly excellent staff and authors.”
Graham began her career in publishing as an editorial assistant at Ballantine, and worked her way through several positions at what are now all imprints of Penguin Random House—assistant editor at Pantheon; editor, senior editor, and ultimately executive editor at Viking Penguin—before joining Scribner, as VP and editor-in-chief, in 1994, after the acquisition of Charles Scribner’s Sons by S&S. She was promoted to VP and publisher in 2012. At Scribner, she has edited books by such authors as Hillary Rodham Clinton, Don DeLillo, Anthony Doerr, Jennifer Egan, Stephen King, Rachel Kushner, Steve Martin, Frank McCourt, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Annie Proulx, Colm Tóibín, and Jeannette Walls.
“Nan’s range as an editor is extraordinary,” said Karp, in a statement. “In addition to being a great editor, Nan has been a superb publisher and generous mentor. A revered and integral part of our company, we’ll continue to benefit from Nan’s wisdom and multitudinous gifts in the coming years, and most importantly, so will the new and returning authors she nurtures and champions as only she can.”
In its 150th anniversary issue in 2022, PW named Graham one of 25 Book Business Change Makers whose mark on the industry over the preceding 25 years had been indelible: “Graham has been a most creative and daring editor from the start, talking David Byrne into his first book (True Stories), bringing poet Joe Brainard’s little masterpiece I Remember back into print, and reading 159 pages of a high school teacher’s manuscript about a poor childhood in Ireland and making an offer on what became Angela’s Ashes. Graham has challenged herself to publish books that make a difference.”
