As a recipient of the Arts Connects Us Grant I travelled to Ghana and Sierra Leone to meet with writers and publishing professionals working in the field of books for young readers to foster creative and collaborative exchanges between those contacts and publishing professionals and readers in the UK. This blog post is by necessity a focus on very specific meetings and conversations and is only a fraction of the encounters and connections I made. I planned my visit to Ghana to coincide with the PaGya! Festival which is organised by Writers Project Ghana and the Goethe Institute. Over the course of three days writers and publishers gathered to talk about everything from poetry to narrative non-fiction, memoir to books for younger readers. There was a packed programme from morning until night with simultaneous events happening making the festival a positive and vibrant event. Speakers came from all over the world and their backgrounds, interests and perspectives ensured a well rounded and broad look at the world of writing with roots in West Africa. Prior to the festival I had arranged several days of meetings with people involved in the world of children’s literature to talk about their work as writers and publishers and also to get to grips with the market in Ghana. It soon became very clear that not only is there a thriving publishing scene in Ghana it is one that is self-sufficient both in terms of talent and audience. I was told often that what readers in Ghana need... Continue reading at 'British Council global'
[ British Council global | 2019-03-19 11:10:28 UTC ]
A group of B2B publishers and ad tech firms are banding together to curtail the harvesting of publisher-specific data from online ad auctions by third-parties, a practice they argue is an unauthorized breach which places their relationships with their audiences at risk. Referred to as data... Continue reading at Folio Magazine
[ Folio Magazine | 2020-06-17 21:29:40 UTC ]
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The Room Where It Happened, John Bolton’s memoir of his time in the Trump administration, is the #1 bestseller on Amazon in advance of its release on June 23, even as the government has sued to slow its publication. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday, claims that Bolton did not fully cooperate with the... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-17 16:57:46 UTC ]
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The social media campaign could force publishers to focus on black writers by encouraging readers to buy their booksCould the New York Times’ Best Seller book list ever be filled entirely by black authors?As industries undergo reckonings around race, in the wake of international demonstrations... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-17 10:00:17 UTC ]
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The memoir reportedly depicts Trump as caring more about re-election than US national security. No wonder he wants to quash itOn Tuesday, the Trump administration asked a federal judge to block publication of John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened, the former national security adviser’s... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-17 06:30:46 UTC ]
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Citing irreparable injury, the Department of Justice on Wednesday filed an emergency motion in federal court seeking a temporary restraining order to block publication of former national security advisor John Bolton's memoir 'The Room Where It Happened.' Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-17 04:00:00 UTC ]
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“Evation.” Yesterday, authorities in the Philippines used that typo to convict Maria Ressa, the crusading journalist who founded the independent news site Rappler, and her former colleague Reynaldo Santos of “cyber-libel” charges. The typo appeared in a May 2012 article in which Santos linked... Continue reading at Columbia Journalism Review
[ Columbia Journalism Review | 2020-06-16 12:23:58 UTC ]
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A new Superman comic, written by Gene Luen Yang, and a medical memoir about a rare and debilitating disease are both featured in the latest Graphic Content column. Continue reading at The New York Times
[ The New York Times | 2020-06-16 09:00:09 UTC ]
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Short stories by contemporary Italian writers are hard to come across and almost none of them make it across the Atlantic. Booksellers and publishers seem to stay away from them because—what’s new?—they sell less, as they apparently lack “the immersive factor.” However, readers in the twentieth... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-16 08:48:49 UTC ]
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I want to acknowledge that my experience as a South Asian is not the same as those of Black people in this country. Although it’s important to note that we may have some shared experiences, the current BLM protests are about Black Lives, and it’s crucial to know the difference. However, the... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-15 19:31:29 UTC ]
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Fifty years ago this month Jim Bouton set the baseball world on fire. His kindling was Ball Four, a book that torched everything the game’s standard bearers held sacred. There had been sports diaries before, which, structurally-speaking, was what Ball Four was, but there had never been a sports... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-15 08:48:10 UTC ]
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Bonnier Books UK has acquired Christa Parravani’s "harrowing and beautifully written" memoir Loved and Wanted: A Memoir of Choice, Children, and Womanhood for its new literary imprint Manilla Press. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-11 17:12:09 UTC ]
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As Black Lives Matter protests take place across the world, the publishing world is rushing to support those ‘ignored by the mainstream’. Who is the mainstream, then?The publishing industry is stilted and archaic. I worked in it for seven years, and left due to reasons I can’t legally talk... Continue reading at The Guardian
[ The Guardian | 2020-06-11 09:44:22 UTC ]
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I am a Black author and publisher in an industry that is dominated by white people. Black Lives Matter is not a hashtag. It is a movement that will carry on until we have seen real change. It is being said time and time again but there is still not enough representation in the publishing... Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-11 01:22:51 UTC ]
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On this episode of Personal Space: The Memoir Show, Sari Botton interviews Sejal Shah, author of the memoir-in-essays This is One Way to Dance, published by the University of Georgia Press. Shah’s essays, many of which are about race, place, and belonging, were written over a span of 20 years,... Continue reading at Literrary Hub
[ Literrary Hub | 2020-06-10 19:00:31 UTC ]
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Author Dorothy Koomson has written an open letter to the publishing industry, in which she describes it as a “hostile environment for Black authors”. Continue reading at The Bookseller
[ The Bookseller | 2020-06-10 06:37:48 UTC ]
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The sadness, exhaustion, anger and frustration that have been expressed by Black people across social media this week have, of course, been felt for centuries.But, by living so much through our screens right now, observing video footage, scrolling through reposted statements and infographics,... Continue reading at British Council global
[ British Council global | 2020-06-05 16:46:27 UTC ]
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Frontline booksellers are the first people customers see when they set foot in bookstores across America, and are among the most vulnerable workers in the publishing industry. This is what their world looks like now. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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‘How to Be an Antiracist’ and other books addressing systemic racism return to our bestseller lists. Plus musician Mikel Jollett debuts with the memoir ‘Hollywood Park,’ and science journalist James Nestor discusses the importance of ‘Breath.’ Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Among the notable deals last week were the sale of a memoir from a PBS NewsHour correspondent, a novel about a woman who gives birth to an owl, and international bestseller Michel Faber’s latest novel. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly
[ Publishers Weekly | 2020-06-05 04:00:00 UTC ]
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Cultural Cross Sections Taylor Hickney In this profile, one of Marie-Helene Bertino’s students at the New School provides a personal glimpse of the author, whose new novel, Parakeet, was published June 2. On the evening of the National Book Awards,... Continue reading at World Literature Today
[ World Literature Today | 2020-06-04 19:40:55 UTC ]
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