Lynn Henry, Editor-in-Chief, Knopf Canada; Publishing Director, Alchemy by Knopf Canada
Lynn Henry is the editor-in-chief at Knopf Canada and the publishing director of Alchemy by Knopf, acquiring groundbreaking literary fiction and non-fiction. Books she has edited have won numerous accolades and prizes in Canada and internationally. Lynn works with acclaimed Canadian authors such as Madeleine Thien, Miriam Toews, Sheila Heti, Dionne Brand, Rawi Hage, Christina Sharpe, Canisia Lubrin, Kate Harris, Maria Reva, Lisa Moore, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Joshua Whitehead and Otoniya Okot Bitek, alongside internationally celebrated writers such as Sally Rooney, Judith Butler, Sunjeev Sahota and Sarah Bakewell. With Dionne Brand she developed the vision for Alchemy, and now closely collaborates with Brand on that transformative line within Knopf Canada. Lynn is inspired by original and provocative ideas, enthralling voices and perspectives, and beautiful, witty, bracing and engaging writing.
Martha Kanya-Forstner, Publisher
Martha Kanya-Forstner is the publisher of Knopf Canada, home to many of the world's finest writers. Books she has edited have won the Booker Prize, the Giller Prize, the Baillie Gifford Prize, the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction, and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and non-fiction. She has worked with Margaret Atwood, David Chariandy, Michael Crummey, Elizabeth Hay, Tomson Highway, Vincent Lam, Kyo Maclear, and Michael Ondaatje. Since joining Knopf Canada, the list has grown to include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Phoebe Boswell, Natasha Brown, Kazuo Ishiguro, Naomi Klein, Helen Knott, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Yann Martel, Hisham Matar, Gabor Maté, Ian McEwan, Kaitlyn Regehr, Jane Rogoyska, Sally Rooney, Salman Rushdie, Edward St. Aubyn, Douglas Stuart, and John Vaillant. Under Martha's leadership, Knopf Canada launched Alchemy, publishing books that explore a radical vision for the future.
Kiara Kent, Executive Editor
Kiara Kent is an executive editor at Knopf Canada, where she acquires literary fiction and select narrative non-fiction. She has worked with both Canadian and international bestselling and award-winning authors, such as Alicia Elliott, Rachel Aviv, Christine Lai, Yaa Gyasi, Claudia Dey, Marlon James, and Raven Leilani. Her current and forthcoming list includes fiction by Souvankham Thammavongsa (Pick a Colour), Kiran Desai (The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny), Jo Harkin (The Pretender), Alan Hollinghurst (Our Evenings), Catherine Chidgey (The Book of Guilt), Elif Shafak (There are Rivers in the Sky), Morgan Talty (Fire Exit), Jess Gibson, and Wayne Johnston, as well as non-fiction by Scaachi Koul (Sucker Punch) and Claire Cameron (How to Survive a Bear Attack).
Hilary Lo, Assistant Editor
Hilary Lo is an assistant editor at Knopf Canada and Alchemy, where she edits across the fiction and non-fiction lists. She has had the pleasure of working on books by Chetna Maroo (Western Lane), Christina Sharpe (Ordinary Notes), Y-Dang Troeung (Landbridge), Dionne Brand (Salvage) and Seán Hewitt (Open, Heaven), among others. Hilary's list includes Everything and Nothing At All by Jenny Heijun Wills; Rayne Fisher-Quann's highly anticipated essay collection, Complex Female Character; Exhumations by Joanne Leow, an incendiary exposé of Singapore and its history of oil refinement; and Raksha Vasudevan's Empires Between Us. She is also the series editor of the annual Alchemy Lecture, curated by Christina Sharpe and Dionne Brand. Hilary hopes to continue building out her list with boundary-pushing narratives and beautiful, disruptive writing. Upcoming publications she is looking forward to are Madeleine Thien's transportive novel, The Book of Records, and the third Alchemy Lecture, The City of Our Dreaming.
Emma Lockhart, Production Editor
Emma Lockhart is the Production Editor at Knopf Canada, where she works closely with Susan Burns and Rick Meier to shepherd our books through the editorial and production processes. She holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts in English Literature and a Master of Arts in Religious Studies, both from Queen’s University, and has taken courses in publishing through The Chang School.
Rick Meier, Publishing Manager
Before taking on the role of publishing manager, Rick Meier was an assistant editor at the Knopf Random Canada Publishing Group, working with many of the imprint's bestselling authors, including Gabor Maté, John Vaillant, Naomi Klein, Salman Rushdie, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Dionne Brand. As publishing manager, Rick works closely with the editorial team and across departments, especially with Knopf Canada's paperback imprint, Vintage Canada, where he focuses on second-format opportunities for a prestigious roster of catalog authors and titles. As an acquiring editor, he is interested in upmarket non-fiction (he recently edited for Canada the collected letters of longtime Knopf Canada stalwart Oliver Sacks) and adventurous literary fiction (last year he published in Canada Kevin Barry's brilliant noir-Western The Heart in Winter and acquired the next two books in Karl Ove Knausgaard's Morning Star series). On the Canadian side, he looks forward to publishing Rob Benvie's brilliant new cult novel The Damagers.
Ally Shap, Editorial Assistant
Ally Shap is an editorial assistant for Knopf Canada, where she works closely with her colleagues to help imagine and execute the imprint’s diverse list of titles. She is interested in artful fiction and non-fiction that toys with the boundaries of narrative form, as well as lush, rhythmic prose. She has contributed to editing of the forthcoming releases: Black Bear, by Trina Moyles; A Truce That is Not Peace, by Miriam Toews; and To Place a Rabbit, by Madhur Anand. She is currently contributing to the edit of Knopf’s recently acquired Wayne Johnston novel. Ally also lends administrative support to the Knopf Canada editorial team by tracking and updating author praise across all company platforms, initiating contract set-up, and preparing the launch presentations each quarter.
Dionne Brand, Editorial Director, Alchemy by Knopf Canada
Dionne Brand is a poet, novelist, and essayist who, with her genre-bending explorations of narrative form, honours the complexities of diasporic experience, gracefully bringing to life the fundamental relationship between politics and aesthetics. Brand's work has made her a central figure in both world and Canadian literature, earning her many awards and honours including the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction in 2021. In 2022, she published Nomenclature, a volume of new and collected poetry. And in 2023, her non-fiction classic, A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging, was published in a new edition celebrating its twenty years of influence. Brand was poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart from 2014-2021. She was invested as a member of the Order of Canada in 2017.