This year I was lucky enough to attend the fair with TBA colleagues Molly Ker Hawn and Brooks Sherman. This is the third fair for Molly and me, so we quickly slip into a familiar routine that makes the long days not feel like work at all. This was Brooks’ first Bologna, and he’ll be posting a blog next week about his impressions. Stay tuned!
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Gemma, Molly and Brooks |
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The agents centre |
The other fantastic thing about Bologna is getting to catch up with our brilliant co-agents and meet the foreign editors who have bought our books over the last year. Our co-agents have the most contact with these editors on a day to day basis, but at Bologna we get to meet them and wax lyrical about our mutual love for our clients’ books.
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Molly and Barbara Konig, German editor of THE SMELL OF OTHER PEOPLES HOUSES |
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Fiammetta Giorgi and Xavier d’Almeida, Italian and French editors of REBEL OF THE SANDS |
Talking foreign editions of clients books, on our first day Molly and I found a gorgeous Italian bookshop near the Piazza Maggiore, and I was very excited to see an Italian copy of Katy Cannon’s LOVE, LIES & LEMON PIES – the Italian title translates as ‘The Ingredients of Happiness’, which is adorable!
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Sneak peek at Sibeal Ponder’s WITCH SWITCH cover! (Bloomsbury – illustrated by Laura Ellen Anderson) |
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Sam Watkins CREATURE TEACHER (OUP – illustrated by David O’Connell) |
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Katy Cannon’s POOCH PARLOUR and WINTER WONDERLAND ANTHOLOGY (Stripes) |
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Katy Cannon’s LOVE, LIES & LEMON PIES and SECRETS, SCHEMES & SEWING MACHINES and Sam Hay’s UNDEAD PETS (Stripes) |
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Mo O’Hara’s MY BIG FAT ZOMBIE GOLDFISH (Macmillan – illustrated by Marek Jagucki) |
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Felicia Chernesky FROM APPLE TRESS TO CIDER PLEASE (Albert Whitman – illustrated by Julia Patton) |
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Ruth Fitzgerald’s EMILY SPARKES AND THE FRIENDSHIP FIASCO (LBYR) |
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Kat Ellis’ BLACKFIN SKY (Running Press) |
There didn’t seem to be a ‘book of the fair’ this year, and no overall trend came to the forefront. Lots of conversations revolved around good writing rather than trends, and that has to be a good thing. It was also pleasing to hear about middlegrade being requested more in translation.
And so that was Bologna 2015. The best of times was had, and I for one can’t wait until 2016!