Bits and bobs, and the best elevator I've seen yet...

Well, I guess that's probably enough time spent gazing at the glowing Moomins (I mean, if there is such a thing as enough time for that activity), but I still haven't wrangled my diverse impressions of the Bologna book fair into a coherent post. So let's just move right along for the moment ...

I've done some interesting things in the last week, including sitting-in on an acquisitions meeting at Simon & Schuster. If I learn nothing else during this fellowship, I will bring home to Australia the important knowledge that meetings where you have no responsibility only curiosity are the best. I've found acquisitions and editorial meetings useful for gleaning info about typical advances and print-runs, about the state of the market in general, and about a publishing house's way of doing business.  But they can also give you a little glimpse into the less tangible things about a company: like their attitudes to books and editors, and the way editorial, marketing, sales and publicity relate to each other. 

Big thanks to Paul Crichton for organising my visit, and to Jon Anderson and the S&S team for letting me sit in.  (And big apologies to the random guy who asked me for directions to the Rockefeller as I stood on the street outside S&S, basically ON TOP of the Rockefeller Centre. Yeah - I was totally wrong, sorry about that.)

I also made a return trip to the Flatiron building to talk all things Swoon Reads with Holly West from Feiwel & Friends.  I was very interested to hear about the genesis of their crowd-sourced teen romance imprint, and how they're getting along in their first year. I love that one of the biggest challenges the Swoon Reads team are facing is that the rating system isn't as effective as it should be, because their community of readers and writers is too nice, and nobody wants give anyone less than five hearts. Thanks so much, Holly, for giving me your time!

The swoonworthy elevators in the Flatiron building. 

And in personal business, I hightailed it to big sky prairie country to spend the weekend with my family in Oklahoma. Big thanks and love to all y'all in Enid, OK.