Dana Canedy will step down as publisher and executive vice president of the Simon & Schuster imprint, Publishers Weekly reports.
The news, announced by S&S CEO Jonathan Karp, comes as a shock to the publishing industry. Canedy, previously an author and New York Times journalist, was appointed to the job just two years ago.
Karp said Canedy is stepping down to focus on writing a sequel to her 2008 memoir, A Journal for Jordan, which told the story of her fiancé, who was killed in the Iraq war.
While Canedy’s job was one of the most coveted in the publishing industry, it also came with considerable baggage over the past two years. Simon & Schuster drew widespread criticism for its decision to publish books by former Vice President Mike Pence and right-wing U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley.
The publisher ended up backing out of the Hawley deal, after the Missouri Republican and Trump ally announced that he would object to certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. But Karp defended giving Pence a reported two-book, seven-figure deal, despite objections from some S&S staffers.
Canedy also defended the book deal at a Fortune magazine summit, saying, “I’m someone who just believes we have to understand the country and the world we’re living in.…We’re not just writing for the moment, we’re writing history.”
Canedy said her decision to leave the publisher was influenced by last year’s film adaptation of A Journal for Jordan.
“I had not quite expected the profound impact that our movie would have on me,” she said. “And after the overwhelming response to it, prompting daily requests for a follow-up to my first book, I concluded that the time is right to write the sequel to A Journal for Jordan.”
Publishers Weekly reports that Karp will take over Canedy’s job “for the foreseeable future.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
