Festival Director Isobel Abulhoul is at the London Book Fair. She will be blogging her thoughts on this unusual edition of the annual trade event, disrupted by volcanic clouds that have reduced visitor numbers by an estimated 20 per cent.

London Book Fair
Day 1: Monday 19th April

Impressions of the Festival

The aisles for the first day of the Fair looked sadly empty as so many visitors were unable to make the journey.

This year’s London Book Fair is honouring South Africa and many of the planned events around South African authors have also been cancelled.

Planning for Emirates Litfest 2011

I spent most of the day visiting key publishers and giving them an overview of this year’s Festival and feedback on their authors who came.

It was heartening to hear their comments and enthusiasm for the Emirates Litfest and I had many exciting discussions on who may be able to attend next year. We already have signed up more than 30 authors from around the globe (some of whose names must be kept under wraps for the time being – but watch this space for more developments!)

The publishers shared with Vivienne and me the authors’ forward publishing schedules, so that we can target authors who will have a new book out around next March. The difficult thing is always that there are so many wonderful authors out there, and who to choose? Luckily as the festival is an annual event, we have many years to keep inviting – indeed we have already issued a couple of invitations for 2012 to authors who can’t join us next year!

Our international profile has become far higher since we began recruiting authors in 2008 for the first Festival. We have definitely made a name for ourselves in the book world, and hopefully the process of signing up international authors will become easier each year.

Catching up with an old friend

I was very fortunate to attend a dinner at which the guest of honour was Philippa Gregory, one of our founding authors. The table conversation was all I could have hoped for and Philippa had us all enthralled. Two other publishers’ parties were cancelled however as the authors were unable to get back to UK in time.

Isobel will continue to blog her experiences at the London Book Fair – to keep up to date with the Festival Blog, subscribe to our RSS feed or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.