From one side of the desk to another

It’s not so uncommon for publishing types to turn around and write books, and Penguin UK/Michael Joseph publisher Rowland White is just the latest to make the jump, as Publishing News reports:

MICHAEL JOSEPH’S PUBLISHING Director for Non-Fiction, Rowland White, is to become a published author next year with Vulcan 607, due from Bantam Press in March. The book is a non-fiction account of the 1982 attack on the landing strip at Port Stanley which began the Falklands War, an incident that White feels has parallels with the ‘Dambusters’ raid in 1943.

Bill Scott-Kerr, Publisher at Transworld, bought the book from Mark Lucas at Lucas Alexander Whitley in an unpublicised deal last year. White said: “It’s a story I first became aware of as an 11-year-old kid fascinated with the Falklands War, and I had always wondered why such an extraordinary achievement hadn’t been written about at length.”

The Vulcan of the title is the lone RAF bomber which launched the longest range attack in aviation history. White added: “Part of me thought I should try and find the writer to do this and commission it for Michael Joseph, another part was thinking that I should do it myself. I’d spent nine months working up a proposal and then sent it to Mark anonymously so it wouldn’t be awkward if he happened to think it was rubbish. But he didn’t and I feel so lucky to be working with Mark and Bill on this book—they’re the ideal team.”

White’s next project for Transworld will also be about military history, though he says that with the demands of his day job, there won’t be anything immediate on the horizon.

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