Frances Coady

Frances Coady
Born	London, England
Education	University of Sussex; University of Essex
Occupations	Publisher literary agent
Website	https://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

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

Career

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

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

Personal life

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

References

1. Kellaway, Lucy (14 July 1993). "Women at the Top, Female progress". The Financial Times.
2. "Author Approved Matt Seaton meets Frances Coady the new editorial director of Granta Books". Vogue Profile. January 1997.
3. "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.
5. Cassell & the Publishers Association directory of publishing, 1990. Cassell Ltd. (Fifteenth ed.). London: Cassell. 1989. ISBN 978-0304318872. OCLC 21220244.
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. "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.
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.
17. 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.