I’ve been shamefully lax on updating everyone on the latest BookBrunch interviews, which means that I have not one, not two, not even five, but SEVEN interviews for you today!
We’ve also had a big, shiny new BookBrunch website built for us, and best of all it’s got its very own interviews section, so you can go back a read your favourite interviews quickly and easily.
What happened to the next big thing? Catching up with Malin Persson Giolito a year on from her LBF hit
“I do think she came during this time when we can all relate to the feeling of having lost control, not perhaps over your own life the way that Maya does, but to have lost control over what is happening in the world. We have it up in our faces, one catastrophe after another and what can you do?”
Debra Millar, publishing director of PRH New Zealand, on publishing in the land of the long white cloud
“The quality of New Zealand publishing is getting better all the time, but my biggest challenge is small print runs whilst trying to achieve very high production values on our illustrated books.”
Championing diversity with Jo Francis from Words of Colour
“When you think about books, you think libraries and bookshops – places you can walk into. Why is it that publishing is like a fortress? There is a remoteness to publishers that they can’t sustain or justify any more. Let’s make this more fun: inclusion is exciting! It underpins what we do and it’s life-affirming.”
Creating a festival for everyone with Alex Clarke of Bath Festival
“While we have invited some very eminent speakers, I would like to think that people will come to those events and feel that they are part of that conversation. That they can ask questions.”
Jacks Thomas, director of the London Book Fair, on supporting the next generation of publishers
“When you look at the wonderful differences in society and the people who are perhaps excluded, if we’re just commissioning and putting out content that’s in our image, we’re only going to become smaller and we’re not going to reach people.”
The book after the runaway bestseller, with author Kate Hamer
“When you’re outside of it, you have this vision that everybody who works in publishing is sitting in their offices reading all day. But in reality as far as I can make out, all reading is done in people’s own time at home. People are very hardworking in publishing.”
Discussing adult literacy with Jo Dawson, programme manager at Quick Reads
“It doesn’t matter what you read, just as long as you start reading. It has the power to change lives.”