Katy O’Donnell
Editorial Director
Haymarket Books

Anthony Arnove, who cofounded Haymarket Books in 2001 and sits on its editorial board, says that he never felt compelled to nominate anyone for Star Watch until he worked with Katy O’Donnell, the indie press’s editorial director.

O’Donnell was hired in 2022 as senior editor and quickly promoted to editorial director. “She showed so much leadership and vision,” Arnove wrote in his nomination letter to PW, adding that she’s already built “a stellar list,” acquiring such provocative works as the 2025 titles Enemy Feminisms by Sophie Lewis and Black History Is for Everyone by Brian Jones. Arnove adds that O’Donnell “further professionalized and improved the organization of the editorial department” and helped tweak Haymarket’s publishing program, resulting in two recent New York Times bestsellers and a 25% increase in sales over last year.

Launching her career in 2009 as an Overlook Press intern, O’Donnell, who majored in English literature at the University of Chicago, aspired to edit literary fiction. But when she moved to Basic Books as associate editor, she was assigned to the history list. “That was a real education in nonfiction publishing,” she says. “That’s where I learned about the craft of editing nonfiction.”

O’Donnell says her work at Basic editing books such as Harlem Nocturne by Farah Jasmine Griffin (2013) and The Half Has Never Been Told by Edward Baptist (2014) initially challenged her politically and later radicalized her. She spent the next six years at Bold Type Books (formerly Nation Books), where she edited Stamped from the Beginning by Ibram X. Kendi (2016). “That was the book that also changed my thinking and pushed my thinking,” she says, noting other notable acquisitions included No Ashes in the Fire by Darnell Moore (2018) and Stakes Is High by Mychal Denzel Smith (2020).

“I have been fortunate always to work at places that have a clear brand and identity and have meaning for readers,” O'Donnell says. Haymarket “has a real political mission, a real sense of the work they want to do in the world.”

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