Ellen Seligman, longtime editor and publisher at McClelland & Stewart, has died.
The New York native spent the majority of her career in Toronto. Authors she edited include: Margaret Atwood, Leonard Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, Peter Robinson, Jane Urquhart, and Guy Vanderhaeghe.
“Though we are in the business of words, I find it next to impossible to express the grief I know we all feel with the loss of this incomparable woman,” said Kristin Cochrane, president and publisher of Penguin Random House Canada, in a statement. “But while we mourn, we also celebrate Ellen’s momentous career and all she achieved in her close to four decades at McClelland & Stewart. Though again, it is too hard to come up with just the right adjective (though Ellen would of course want me to) to accurately or adequately describe the contribution Ellen made to Canadian literature.”