Saturday, October 13, 2012

News from the NZ Book Council at the Frankfurt Book Fair

Like many of the 60-plus authors, as well as the publishers and book industry folk at the Frankfurt Book Fair (10–14 October 2012), Book Council CEO Catriona Ferguson has quickly developed ‘Frankfurt feet’. This phenomenon is a result of the great amount of walking she’s been doing between author panels, readings and celebrations relating to New Zealand’s Guest of Honour status at the fair this year.

Catriona has been busy blogging and tweeting from the Frankfurt Book Fair and you can catch up with all her activities on the Book Council blog: http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Blog/Topics# . You’ll find audio interviews with publishers and authors, links to her blog posts and twitter updates, as well as Book Council round-ups of web highlights connected with Frankfurt.

Enjoy Catriona’s quick audio interviews with Beatnik Publishing, Brian Falkner, Jenny Bornholdt and Kevin Chapman here: http://soundcloud.com/catriona-ferguson-nzbc . You can keep up with the Book Council at the Frankfurt Book Fair by following Catriona Ferguson on Twitter @catNZBC.

Here is Catriona’s latest blog post:

And So It Goes On

It’s day something. I forget which. Let’s just say it’s been a few.

Being in the Frankfurt Messe makes me think I may be caught up in a kind of publishing time-slip where the days merge into one and the only noise is a kind of humming and thrumming of business being done. I can’t make out sentences, just words like ‘augmented reality’ and ‘Android’ and ‘EPUB 3′ as I wander round the Book Fair (I know, I know, I should be over this by now) awed by the scale of the thing. But in a venue offering non-stop shuttles to take you from one place to another, you know you’re somewhere a bit bigger than The Cloud. And as I have Frankfurt feet, I’m very grateful to those shuttles.

The Pavilion continues to draw oohs and aahs from the crowds drifting in and out and it’s fabulous to see a bit of Book Council material in the audio-visual display. Go here for the original material: http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/Readers/Introduction/Fast-Fives-from-the-Festival.htm. And just as an aside there are some great writers’ interviews further down the page there, too. But I digress.

Back to the Pavilion. Today brought more events, panels, chats, readings etc. featuring all sorts of writers including Linda Olsson, C.K. Stead, Kate De Goldi, Hamish Clayton, Paul Cleave, Justin Paton, and Bronwyn Hayward and a celebration of the life of Margaret Mahy – a worthy tribute indeed. There’s a bit of a distraction from the audio playing on the main stage, but it comes and goes and it’s possible to tune out when the writers are doing their bit.

The Pavilion is impressive but has not been without mishap – given the layout and the lighting its perilously easy for distracted visitors to slip off the walkway and into the (shallow) water which surrounds it. It’s a very small drop so relatively low-risk. However, a reliable source did confirm yesterday that there have been two full immersions and six minor derailments (one featuring luggage and stilettos) to date. Today’s attendants have torches.

Meanwhile on the Publishers Association stand things have ticked along nicely. The morning got off to a sedate start as bleary-eyed publishers arrived following a night of stand parties, big dinners and general carousing. This is of course, an integral part of clinching the deal. Apparently And then all of a sudden in that time-slip sort of way, it was 5pm and time for the next networking opportunity at the Australian Publishers Association stand party. And so it goes on.

Read further posts by Catriona Ferguson from the Frankfurt Book Fair on her blog here: http://catrionanzbookcouncil.wordpress.com/  

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