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Martha Ashby and Charlotte Cray have been promoted within HarperCollins.
Ashby has been promoted to editorial director of commercial women’s fiction at HarperFiction after being an editor in the department for three years while Cray has moved up the ladder from editor to commissioning editor at the Borough Press imprint.
Ashby began her career at Orion in 2007 focusing on publicity, before moving to Weidenfeld & Nicolson, and then HarperCollins in 2012.
She was named a Bookseller Rising Star last year and published one of the most successful debut novels of 2017, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, which will be adapted into a film for Reese Witherspoon’s production company Hello Sunshine. Ashby will publish The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder by Sarah J Harris next spring which is already “hotly anticipated” according to a HarperCollins spokesperson.
Kimberley Young, publisher at HarperFiction, said she was “so proud of Ashby’s achievements. She said: “Martha has a brilliant eye for spotting unique voices and it’s been exciting to watch her star rise over the last five years and watch her list build.”
Ashby said: “Harper has been an incredibly nurturing and supportive place to work for the last five years, with an incredible team around me who make every day exciting and creative.”
Cray joined HarperCollins in 2012 as an editorial assistant, after training as a barrister, and was part of the team that launched the Borough imprint in 2014. She began acquiring for the list last year with titles such as “unsettling and thrilling” debut, Oola by Brittany Newell, and has worked editorially on many titles by authors including Lionel Shriver, Allison Pearson and Tracy Chevalier.
Suzie Dooré, Borough’s publishing director, praised Cray’s “excellent literary taste, razor-sharp editorial skills” and described her as an “imaginative and indispensable” member of the Borough team. Dooré said: “Her acquisitions always bring something fresh and new to the list, and we are looking forward to publishing many more of them.”
Cray said: “I am excited to be bringing more talent to the dynamic, successful list which I have seen flourish since its inception.”