Bologna to Rome: Part Whatever - I'm pretty behind

We left off at the end of Day 1 of the fair, I believe. Well, Day 2 was fun. I met with many interesting and innovative publishers as well as international organizers who were sort of scouting to see what we are doing in Canada. The Singapore Arts Council was particularly interesting. I'm hoping that we can form a really productive partnership with them.
On Tuesday evening, Special Agent Ali and I went to the Egmont UK party. Apparently, getting an invie to this affair is quite a score - which is one reason (among many) why Ali is a special agent. What a great evening! We met a most gregarious UK agent as well as a British illustrator and her dad. Rosie Brooks is her name and you can see her illustrations here. They are sweet and remind me of some of my favourite Canadian illustrators. Rosie's dad used to work for Scholastic Canada back in the day - when they were located in Richmond Hill - and he was very enthusiastic in his admiration of all things Canadian. Rosie has an incredible body of work behind her and had been involved in some fascinating projects. Would you believe that she has even illustrated a guitar for Paul McCartney that he uses on stage? And check this out (#6)! Whoa. They gave me some interesting ideas that I'm hoping to pursue with other people in CanKidLit when I return. But I'm going to remain a bit mysterious about that for now...

Mario treated us very well!

Speaking of being mysterious, there is a fabulous restaurant I discovered in Bologna last year which Ali and I returned to this year. We love it to bits, but we don't want it to become common knowledge among the Fair frequenters since we want to be able to get our table there again every year LOL! Anyhow, when we went to ""our place on my last evening in Bologna, our wonderful server brought us free hors d'oeuvres and, instead of the prosecco we ordered, champagne. (See? Can't let this place get out of the bag!)

Fair participants enjoying the sunshine between halls 25 & 26

On Thursday, I had another busy morning at the Fair, keeping several appointments and welcoming the occasional drop-in before packing up the booth. This year really was very, very busy. When I wasn't roaming from appointment to appointment, I was manning our little table. As one person left, another would be waiting in line. Not bad for two metres of space in a collective booth with several other publishers! Though it certainly didn't hurt having Orca, Pembrooke, and Pajama Press surrounding me. Sometimes people would come in for one publisher and stay for the rest!

A gift from the Iranian IBBY delegation

In all, I'd say that the most requested genres were picture books and middle-grade novels. The teen novels and non-fiction weren't in demand this year, unlike last year. At least, not among the people I was meeting with. I was extremely happy to have had the picture books on my iPad and the fabulous colour sell-sheets and bookmarks in my binders (thank you again, Uma and Solange!)

And with the conclusion of the Fair, I had one last Bologna gelato in the beautiful sunshine and headed off to Rome.

The  trees were bursting into bloom, thanks to the fine weather!