Nothing can prepare you for the sheer expanse of it. Pictures don't even do it justice (when do they ever, tbh?) hence why I didn't bother taking one. I had actually been to Olympia a trillion years ago when I went with my school for the University Fair. LBF must have used every single corner and crevice because it was absolutely huge. I am told Bologna is 8 times bigger so my tiny brain has well and truly been fried.
I went to a lot of talks/seminar-things, all discovered through the AMAZING app. Some of them turned out to be quite different from the information given/what I expected, but others were SO on the money and my EXACT cup of tea (two sugars and oat milk).
I learned a few things whilst there:
- I don't read enough Young Adult and must fix this immediately.
- Translators are also editors!! I went to a talk about translating fiction from Baltic languages and it was really interesting that the role of the editor is extended when literally changing the language. Something I hadn't given much thought to before, but makes perfect sense after someone spelled it out of me in an hour long talk with four amazing panelists.
- I wish I knew another language (this is old news to me) because I hadn't realised until this week that I really do think it is an injustice that there is such a small percentage of foreign books translated INTO English. I wish I could help by translating them myself. I'll have to settle on reading the books which are already translated and bang on about them for the rest of my life. I'm going to do a whole other blog post about this because I feel very strongly about this now, despite me only realising it was a thing for less than a week.
- I made a good choice with my shoes. Lots of the advice was to wear flat and comfortable shoes. I did so and I am very smug that I walked around for three whole days (with breaks, obviously... I did go home) with no blisters. Oh, look, a genuinely useful transferrable skill from my retail job. Who knew?
- Chris Riddell is a god amongst men. Again, this will be discussed further.
- Books are cool (already knew that one).
- Book people are cool (already knew that one too, but have never met so many in one building).
During the three days, I saw the Queen of England, Jacqueline Wilson, give tips to future writers, a brilliant YA talk with author Taran Matharu, literary agent Clare Wilson, and Executive Editorial Director at Walker Books, Denise Johnstone-Burt discuss current trends in the genre, as well as a great discussion aimed at illustrators about their style and such. The last may seem like it doesn't apply to me because I have little-to-no artistic ability, but I think it is really important as a future publisher to know the illustrator's process and to have an eye for it early on, to ensure the best possible marriage between text and art.
My cool shoes and the Children's part of the fair's cool carpets. Jacqueline Wilson being adorable. One of my favourite illustrations in the history of the world, which was outside the Children's Hub where a lot of cool talks were held.
Bye x
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