Patrick Crean
Senior Editor and publisher currently working with Thomas Allen Publishers.
Last Contribution:
The Mother of All Prizes
Contributor Biography
Educated at Upper Canada College and Queen’s University, Mr. Crean grew up in a peripatetic foreign service family and lived in various European capitals including Paris, London, Belgrade, Rome, and Bonn where his father was Canadian Ambassador. He has been in the book publishing business since 1971 when he joined McClelland & Stewart as a junior editor.
Over the years he has worked with a wide range of authors including Susan Swan, Barbara Gowdy, Greg Hollingshead, Leon Rooke, Austin Clarke, Jack Hodgins, David Gilmour and Gordon Lish. A number of his authors have won or been nominated for literary awards, including Greg Hollingshead whose collection of stories The Roaring Girl won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1995, and David Gilmour who won the 2005 Governor General’s Award for Fiction for his novel A Perfect Night to Go to China.
In 2003, he was awarded the Editor of the Year Libris Award by the Canadian Booksellers Association. After a four-year editorial apprenticeship at McClelland & Stewart, he joined General Publishing in 1975 as Acquisitions Editor. His editorial positions over the years have included script editor at TV Ontario, Managing Editor of the international book packager Jonathan-James Books, Editor of the Nicholson Press and Editorial Director of Ripley Books International. From 1983-1988, he ran his own editorial and publishing consulting business.
In 1986, he co-edited Peace: a Dream Unfolding, an anthology about the struggle for world peace, which was published to critical acclaim by Lester and Orpen, Dennys and the Sierra Club in the USA. From 1988-1998, he worked at Somerville House Publishing as Vice-President and Editorial Director of both the adult and children’s lists, as well as publishing authors under his own imprint Patrick Crean Books.
In 1998, he joined Key Porter Books as Senior Editor with his own imprint, Patrick Crean Editions. In 2000, he was appointed Publisher of Thomas Allen & Son’s new trade book division, Thomas Allen Publishers. Noted for publishing original voices, fine writing, and uncommon ideas, he has tended to focus on literary fiction, culture and technology, metaphysics and philosophy, history and memoir.
