Moa Press appoints Clara van Wel to new assistant commissioning editor role

The former Unity Books accounts manager will lead growth of the Hachette Aotearoa imprint's non-fiction list.

Moa Press, the local imprint of Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand, has hired Clara van Wel as assistant commissioning editor, a newly created position. Head of publishing Kate Stephenson made the announcement on 12 October.

Van Wel comes from Unity Books, where she most recently managed school and library accounts after working as a bookseller in the chain's Wellington and Auckland shops. She has also worked in editorial roles and as a journalist for a range of New Zealand outlets. She holds a Master of Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters and an honours degree in English literature from Cambridge University.

In the new job she will work across both fiction and non-fiction, with a particular brief to build the imprint's non-fiction program. Recent Moa Press non-fiction titles include Jon Toogood's memoir Home Again and Charlotte Glennie's Every Second Counts. Van Wel will consider submissions from authors with and without agents.

Moa Press followed the appointment with a non-fiction submissions window running to 30 November. It is open to New Zealanders and writers with a connection to the country, and the imprint lists science and nature writing, microhistories, offbeat memoir and Pacific stories among its interests.