Christopher Potter (born 1 April 1959) is a British author and editor. He is the editorial director at Europa Editions UK.
Life and career
Born in Warrington, Potter has a BSc in mathematics from
King's College London
King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
and an MSc in the history and
philosophy of science
Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
.
He was an editor for six years at
Sphere Books
Sphere Books is the name of two British paperback publishers.
History
The original Sphere Books was launched in 1966 by Thomson Corporation. Sphere was sold to Pearson PLC in 1985 and became part of Penguin. The name was retired in 1990.
In 19 ...
before joining the independent publishing house Fourth Estate, where he ultimately became publisher and managing director. The company was celebrated for discovering so-called "sleepers" and transforming them into bestsellers.
At Fourth Estate he worked closely with many writers, including
Carol Shields
Carol Ann Shields, (née Warner; June 2, 1935 – July 16, 2003) was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel ''The Stone Diaries'', which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as ...
,
Annie Proulx
Edna Ann Proulx (; born August 22, 1935) is an American novelist, short story writer, and journalist. She has written most frequently as Annie Proulx but has also used the names E. Annie Proulx and E.A. Proulx.
She won the PEN/Faulkner Award fo ...
,
Michael Cunningham
Michael Cunningham (born November 6, 1952) is an American novelist and screenwriter. He is best known for his 1998 novel '' The Hours'', which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in 1999. Cunningham is a senior lectur ...
and
Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon ( ;
born May 24, 1963) is an American novelist, screenwriter, columnist, and short story writer. Born in Washington, DC, he spent a year studying at Carnegie Mellon University before transferring to the University of Pittsburgh, gr ...
(all of whom won the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for novels published by Fourth Estate),
Dava Sobel
Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include ''Longitude'', about English clockmaker John Harrison, and '' Galileo's Daughter'', about Galileo's daughter Maria Celeste, and ' ...
,
Hilary Mantel
Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, ''Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was releas ...
,
Matt Ridley
Matthew White Ridley, 5th Viscount Ridley, (born 7 February 1958), is a British science writer, journalist and businessman. He is known for his writings on science, the environment, and economics and has been a regular contributor to ''Th ...
,
Simon Singh
Simon Lehna Singh, (born 19 September 1964) is a British popular science author, theoretical and particle physicist. His written works include ''Fermat's Last Theorem'' (in the United States titled ''Fermat's Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve th ...
,
Salley Vickers
Salley Vickers (born 1948) is a British novelist whose works include ''Miss Garnet's Angel'', ''Mr. Golightly's Holiday'', ''The Other Side of You'' and ''Where Three Roads Meet'', a retelling of the Oedipus myth to Sigmund Freud in the last mon ...
,
Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett (born December 2, 1963) is an American author. She received the 2002 PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction in the same year, for her novel ''Bel Canto''. Patchett's other novels include '' The Patron Saint of Liars'' (1 ...
,
James Gleick
James Gleick (; born August 1, 1954) is an American author and historian of science whose work has chronicled the cultural impact of modern technology. Recognized for his writing about complex subjects through the techniques of narrative nonficti ...
,
Kate Summerscale
Kate Summerscale (born 1965) is an English writer and journalist.
Biography
Summerscale was brought up in Japan, England and Chile. After attending Bedales School (1978–1983), she took a double-first at Oxford University and an MA in jour ...
,
Kathryn Harrison
Kathryn Harrison (born March 20, 1961, in Los Angeles, California) is an American author. She has published seven novels, two memoirs, two collections of personal essays, a travelogue, two biographies, and a book of true crime. She reviews regula ...
,
Kate Jennings
Catherine Ruth Jennings (20 May 1948 – 1 May 2021) was an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist.
Biography
Jennings grew up on a farm near Griffith, New South Wales. She attended the University of Sydney in the late 1960s, gradua ...
,
Gilbert Adair
Gilbert Adair (29 December 19448 December 2011) was a Scottish novelist, poet, film critic, and journalist.Stuart Jeffries and Ronald BerganObituary: Gilbert Adair ''The Guardian'', 9 December 2011. He was critically most famous for the "fiend ...
,
Maureen Duffy
Maureen Patricia Duffy (born 21 October 1933) is an English poet, playwright, novelist and non-fiction author. Long an activist covering such issues as gay rights and animal rights, she campaigns especially on behalf of authors. She has receive ...
Amanda Craig
Amanda Craig (born 1959) is a British novelist, critic and journalist. She was a recipient of the Catherine Pakenham Award.
Early life
Born in South Africa, Craig grew up in Italy before moving to London. Her parents were British journalist, ...
and
Rachel Cusk
Rachel Cusk (born 8 February 1967) is a British novelist and writer.
Childhood and education
Cusk was born in Saskatoon to British parents in 1967, the second of four children with an older sister and two younger brothers, and spent much of h ...
."
In 2004, after 17 years at Fourth Estate, Potter left to pursue a career as a writer. In January 2019 he joined
Europa Editions
Europa Editions is an independent trade publisher based in New York. The company was founded in 2005 by the owners of the Italian press Edizioni E/O and specializes in literary fiction, mysteries, and narrative non-fiction.
Europa has published ...
UK as editorial director.
Books
His first book, ''You Are Here'', was published in 2009 by Hutchinson (
Random House
Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
) in the UK and
HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
in America. It was translated into 15 languages. "One of the best popular science books I have ever read," wrote Stuart Jeffries in the ''
Guardian
Guardian usually refers to:
* Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another
* ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper
(The) Guardian(s) may also refer to:
Places
* Guardian, West Virginia, Unite ...
''. ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'' described it as "One of the most entertaining and thoughtful pop-science books to be published for years."
Potter's second book, ''How to Make a Human Being'', was published in 2014 by Fourth Estate. "A sort of commonplace book full of paradox and conflicting ideas, shocking facts and redemptive anecdotes, turbulent with two or three millennia of human thought," wrote ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''.
His third book, ''The Earth Gazers'', was published in 2018 by Head of Zeus in the UK and Pegasus in America. ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' described it as "A fresh and elegantly wrought account of mankind’s journey from firing lumps of jerry-rigged metal from cabbage fields to crunching around in the dust of another world."