| Communications and Development |  |
Published by Communications and Development
Canterbury University Press (CUP) contract editor and designer Rachel Scott has been appointed Publisher for the press.
Ms Scott has been acting publisher for the past three months following the sudden death of CUP Managing Editor Richard King on 5 March this year.
She had been working on contract for CUP for five years and has worked on about two dozen of its titles to date.
Ms Scott said she is very excited about the job.
“When I started off doing this job, filling in after Richard’s death in a state of shock, I really was just going through the motions. But the longer I was here and came to grips with the job the more I thought ‘I can do this’,” she said.
“I relish the challenge of managing a whole publishing house rather than working on one book at a time. I feel as if my whole career has been leading up to this. I wouldn’t have thought that three months ago.”
Ms Scott brings 17 years experience in the book industry to her new role, including 12 years as a freelance editor. In recent years she has worked for CUP, and as a fiction editor for Random House and Penguin.
CUP Director, University Registrar Jeff Field, said he was delighted with the appointment.
“Rachel was a key contractor for us for five years, and in that time she built on her award-winning editing skills and developed design and project management strengths as well.
“She stepped up to the full publisher role in very demanding circumstances and was selected for the continuing role from a strong field of publishing professionals. The CUP team is looking forward to working with her as she develops the press further,” he said.
Working on the student newspaper Salient while studying at Victoria University was where Ms Scott said she first “got the taste” for editing.
The English major got her first job out of University as a trainee sub-editor at the New Zealand Listener, where she spent 10 years before moving on to the National Business Review as chief sub-editor.
She moved to Christchurch in 1987, at which time she started a family and worked part-time as a sub-editing tutor for Canterbury’s Graduate Diploma in Journalism students from 1990-1996 and as a sub-editor at The Press.
Ms Scott said she has no grand plans to make changes at CUP.
“Business as usual is my plan. I think CUP’s profile has been quietly building over the past few years, and I want to consolidate our position as a publishing house the University can be proud of.”
When her head is not buried in a book manuscript, the Darfield mother of two teenagers can be caught treading the boards. The keen amateur thespian will be playing Buttercup in HMS Pinafore with the Kirwee Players next month.
For further information please contact:
Maria De Cort
Communications Officer
University of Canterbury
Ph: (03) 364 2072
maria.decort@canterbury.ac.nz