Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi stated: “One trend that needs our immediate attention is sustainability, most importantly the impact of the book industry on the environment. It is also an opportunity to raise discussions on the book industry‘s sustainability and propose initiatives that could radically change the way we produce and distribute books, while at the same time giving us the opportunity to lead this change and be part of the process. No single publisher or bookseller or stakeholder from our ecosystem can face this challenge alone, which is why collaboration is more critical now than ever.”

Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi, emphasised the importance of collaboration and innovation in the book industry and the need for the industry to address sustainability and effects of the industry on the environment, also discussing the growing trend of generative artificial intelligence and its potential to bring radical changes to the way books are written, published, and consumed.

The Kalimat Group CEO and Founder, and Immediate Past President of International Publishers Association, stressed the importance of staying ahead of the curve and finding ways to strengthen the industry and its processes, as well as unleashing the creative power within teams and inviting thought-leaders from different sectors to help the industry look at things differently. Emphasising the need to challenge biases in order to continuously learn and evolve, Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi left the audience with an impactful and motivational message, saying, “I truly believe that we are at a historic moment in our industry, and through consistent collaboration, our ability to innovate and re-imagine our industry will help transform these challenges into opportunities.”

During his opening speech at the conference, Ahmed Al Amiri, Chairman of the Sharjah Book Authority, highlighted the commitment of the Emirate of Sharjah to supporting and promoting the book industry both regionally and globally thanks to the visionary leadership and directives of His Highness Sheikh Dr. Sultan bin Muhammad AlQasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah. Al Amiri emphasised the significance of the challenges facing the publishing and creative industries and how these challenges could become opportunities. He encouraged collaboration between publishers and distributors from all over the world and stressed the importance of effective communication between all stakeholders in the industry.

Al Amiri also expressed his hope for fruitful discussions and successful outcomes at the conference. Expanding on this, the Chairman stated, “We recognize the significance of the role of booksellers and are fully aware of the main challenges hindering the development of your businesses… As such, we have organised this Booksellers Conference not only as a platform for dialogue and discussion but also as an excellent opportunity to present solutions, implement and support them, and transform successful experiences in this sector into practical lessons to learn from.”

In a quest to uncover new opportunities, untangle complex issues, and chart a path for the future, the two-day event — a first-of-its-kind in the region, hosting more than 400 booksellers and distributors from 69 countries — is committed to enriching the publishing industry. With a goal to spark groundbreaking discussions on the state of the industry, the conference is an unparalleled platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, and expertise that will redefine the future of the publishing and bookselling industry.

 LBF Director Gareth Rapley said: “I’m pleased to announce that we have been able to move the dates for next year’s fair to 12th to 14th March 2024. Our top aim is to deliver a fair that works for as many of our attendees as possible, and this move has been made following extensive dialogue with our advisory board and industry stakeholders, who strongly backed the March dates.

“We appreciate that the tight turnaround between Bologna 2024 and LBF, if it had stayed at its previous April dates, would have imposed real logistical difficulties on exhibitors hoping to attend both fairs. It would also have prevented attendees to both fairs from having much downtime to take stock from Bologna and prepare for LBF.

“This will be a longer-term move to this period going forward, and we now are planning for LBF to be held around the same time in March from here on. We hope this provides welcome certainty for the international adult and children’s industry.“

Metro Series

In the Metro series, players try to survive life in a post-apocalyptic Russia that has seen its surface become completely inhospitable after nuclear bombs leave the area bathed in intense radiation. While the first game acts as a fairly traditional adaptation of Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky’s 2002 novel of the same name, the games and books actually go back and forth to fill in the narrative after that.

Zelda

Save Me the Waltz author Zelda Fitzgerald was the wife of Great Gatsby scribe F. Scott Fitzgerald, a larger-than-life personality that so captivated the imagination of developer Shigeru Miyamoto that he paid tribute to her with the title character of his Legend of Zelda for Nintendo. Though Fitzgerald was often considered a tragic figure, her 8-bit counterpart fared considerably better, which the Zelda games going on to be one of the most beloved series in video game history.

Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007) is a post-apocalyptic survival FPS developed by GSC Game World, a video game company from Ukraine. It takes place in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the bleak, mutant-infested area surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. Players take the role of stalkers, fortune seekers exploring the Zone in order to understand its mysteries.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was inspired by The Roadside Picnic (1972), a novella written by the Strugatsky brothers, two renowned Soviet sci-fi authors.

Dune II

Dune II (1992) is a real-time strategy game by Westwood Studios, a now-defunct video game company from Las Vegas, Nevada. The game chronicles the war between three factions fighting for control of the titular planet: the Atreides, the Harkonnen, and the Ordos. It is one of the earliest examples of real-time strategy gameplay, and it inspired countless other games.

Dune II was based on the sci-fi novel Arrakis (1965) by Frank Herbert, the first book in the series later known as the Dune franchise.

The game does a good job of simulating the harsh desert environment of Arrakis. The factions are also faithful to their literary counterparts, but the ecological, religious, and social themes, which form the core of the book’s narrative, are largely absent.

 I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream

I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream (1995) is a point-and-click adventure game developed and published by two companies, Cyberdreams and The Dreamers Guild. It takes place in a dystopian future where an artificial intelligence called AM has exterminated all of humanity except for five people. AM keeps torturing these five by placing them in simulated realities based on their character flaws. Players interact with the game by making decisions cantred around ethical dilemmas that deal with issues such as genocide, insanity, paranoia, and rape.

This grim masterpiece of a game was based on a novel of the same name by Harlan Ellison, originally published in 1967.

Discworld Noir

Discworld Noir (1999) is an adventure game developed by Perfect Entertainment. It is set in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld universe and follows Lewton, the city’s lone private eye, as he attempts to solve a murder case that will lead him into the occult underbelly of Ankh-Morpork, the world’s largest city. Most of the game takes place in conversation, with players interrogating potential suspects of the crime. Halfway through the game, Lewton becomes a werewolf, adding a new smell-based investigation mechanic to the game.

Unlike previous games set in the Discworld universe, Discworld Noir doesn’t follow the plot of any of the existing novels. Instead, it borrows characters and locales from Discworld to tell its own story. Terry Pratchett viewed the game as an alternative take on the Discworld universe. The game lacks Pratchett’s trademark humour, which was replaced by more somber, macabre elements, more in line with dark fantasy.

Spec Ops: The Line

Spec Ops: The Line (2012) is a military shooter by Yager Development, a Berlin-based game development studio. Players take on the role of Captain Martin Walker, a Delta Force operative sent to Dubai to aid in the relief efforts after the city was engulfed by a massive sandstorm. As Walker and his team progress through the city, they become engulfed in street violence between various factions fighting for control of the ruined city. The game features standard third-person shooter mechanics, admittedly with a much grimmer tone compared to similar games.

The direct inspiration for the game was Heart of Darkness (1899), the colonial tale by Joseph Conrad that also inspired the film Apocalypse Now. The game portrays the horrific realities of war in gruesome detail, rape, war crimes, and genocide being at the core of the game’s themes.

The Lost Author: Elena Ferrante Outed

When My Brilliant Friend, the first novel in Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet, appeared in 2014, everyone knew “Elena Ferrante” was a pseudonym, and, as the linked piece from Entertainment Weekly indicates, that the author wished their real identity to remain unknown. In 2016, however, a fellow Italian writer, Claudio Gatti, “exposed” Elena Ferrante as a woman, a reclusive translator. The real scandal here was not anything Ferrante did or didn’t do, but rather Gatti’s digging through years of financial and real estate records to “prove” her identity. He got attacked on The Twitter although that probably didn’t bother him one bit. Worse, he tried to infer that the “real” Ferrante couldn’t have written her books without editorial support from her husband. At the time, Ferrante said being “outed” by name might deter her from writing.

Cultural Blinders: American Dirt

Jeanine Cummins’ American Dirt, a novel about a Mexican woman and her son attempting to migrate illegally to the United States, triggered backlash early when the  book launch-luncheon floral centerpieces featured decorative circles of barbed wire. The wire, of course, was part of the book jacket design, but it’s also a clear symbol of the border fence meant to prevent immigrants from entering the country. Classy, right? The insensitive decorative choice launched a thousand diatribes. However, the backlash ultimately went much deeper than table decoration. Rightfully, Latinx authors and readers object to the inappropriate cultural appropriations, including reductive caricatures of Mexicans, made by a non-Mexican author.

The Biographies of Monstrous Men: Blake Bailey & Philip Roth and Blake Bailey

Biographer Blake Bailey was riding high when his account of novelist Philip Roth’s life hit bookstores, and felt comfortable enough during interviews to mention Roth’s bad behaviour toward women, stating that it was all part of a great artist’s time on earth. But when Bailey that same year was accused of sexually assaulting two women (one rape is alleged to have taken place upstairs at literary critic Dwight Garner’s home during a book party), his publisher, W.W. Norton, halted shipping, distribution, and further printing of the Roth biography. In June 2022, Skyhorse Books announced it will be publishing Blake Bailey’s latest book . . . on cancel culture.

Manuscript Mischief: Filippo Bernardini (2021)

Plenty of other authors, agents, editors, and publishing execs were caught out by a Simon & Schuster UK employee named Filippo Bernardini, who conducted a high-level manuscript-phishing scam so that he could sell the manuscripts—that would have required using a proper email address. When he was arrested in January 2022 at JFK airport, Bernardini alone was indicted; S&S UK was not involved in the case in any way. Will we ever know what the manuscripts stolen, which included works by Margaret Atwood and Ethan Hawke, meant to him?

The Hitler Diaries

Fooled by what must be the most audacious literary fraud in history, The Sunday Times announced in 1983 that it was in possession of Adolf Hitler’s personal diaries covering the entire war.

The Sunday Times resolutely defended the authenticity of the documents for a fortnight before backing down

German reporter Gerd Heinemann claimed to have unearthed the diaries which were reportedly lost when a Junkers transport plane, evacuating a hoard of the Fuhrer’s personal possessions during his last stand in Berlin in 1945, crashed near the German-Czechoslovak border.

Although several authorities on the history of the war, including leading historian Hugh Trevor Roper, had privately begun to express doubts about the authenticity of the diaries, Sunday Times proprietor Rupert Murdoch is said to have insisted that the newspaper publish the sensational scoop anyway.

Although it took several sophisticated analyses to finally prove the hoax, some obvious errors were later referred to by those who had handled the diaries, such as incorrect use of Hitler’s initials and the fact that they were all presented in an identical cheap exercise book format that would be difficult to source across a number of years.

The Shakespeare Papers

In 1796 opinion of the work of William Shakespeare was briefly reshaped by the ‘discovery’ of a hoard of documents, including several plays, apparently written by the bard.

Law clerk William Henry Ireland claimed to have found the documents in a trunk. They included plays Vortigern and Rowena and Henry II and, even more sensationally, a ‘Profession of Faith’ in which Shakespeare declared himself a Protestant.

The son of an author and engraver who was himself obsessed by Shakespeare’s work, it was said Ireland junior fabricated the fraud to impress his father.

As is often the case with such sensational ‘discoveries’, things quickly got out of hand and soon the Drury Lane Theatre was planning a production of Vortigern. The production was practically laughed off the stage.

Like Rupert Murdoch with The Hitler Diaries, it is believed the theatre doubted the authenticity of the play but went ahead anyway, presumably to sell tickets. Nonetheless Ireland’s father claimed until his death that the documents were authentic.

When Thomas Pynchon came out of hiding to defend Ian McEwan

In the back of Ian McEwan’s Atonement, he acknowledges the book’s debt to No Time for Romance, Lucilla Andrews’s 1977 memoir of serving as a nurse during WWII. But when Andrews died in 2006, a journalist raised some questions about McEwan’s use of that memoir. In an article in the Daily Mail, Julia Langdon alleged that before her death, Andrews had felt “there was a score to be settled. That Ian McEwan should, so to speak, be brought to book.” Predictably, this all brought up lots of questions about McEwan’s use of Andrews’s material, and whether he had used it responsibly. McEwan maintained that he had done nothing wrong—he had, after all, publicly acknowledged her and her work on multiple occasions. “I did use real events that Lucilla Andrews described,” he told the Times. “As far as I know, my wording has been distinct from hers. My own mother used to read her books, so it was not as if I was plucking some obscure figure from the library shelves.” Several prominent writers, including John Updike, Martin Amis, Thomas Keneally, Zadie Smith and Margaret Atwood, also came to McEwan’s defense. The famously reclusive Thomas Pynchon even felt it necessary to chime in, sending this statement via his British publisher:

When Dan Brown got sued, and then got sued again, and then. . 

Three separate parties have accused Dan Brown of plagiarising their work to create his mega-bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. First, there was Lewis Perdue, who argued Brown had stolen from his novels The Da Vinci Legacy and Daughter of God. The judge wasn’t having it—”Any slightly similar elements are on the level of generalised or otherwise unprotectable ideas,” he wrote in his ruling. Next were Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, two historians who claimed that Brown had “appropriated the architecture” of their 1982 book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. The judge dismissed the case. “Even if the central themes were copied, they are too general or of too low a level of abstraction to be capable of protection by copyright law,” he said. Baigent and Leigh appealed; but their appeal also failed. Now there’s Jack Dunn, who has actually been trying to sue Dan Brown for allegedly stealing “hundreds” of elements from his book The Vatican Boys, for a decade or more. After losing his plagiarism case in 2007, he has recently begun preparations to open a new one.

Penguin Random House imprints in the US, UK and Canada including the Viking have bought the new novel “My Friends” by Hisham Matar, the US-born, British-Libyan writer whose memoir The Return, about the search for his father, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017.

The synopsis for his new novel reads: “Khaled and Mustafa meet at university in Edinburgh: they are two Libyan 18-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan Embassy. Government officials open fire, killing a policewoman and wounding eleven Libyan demonstrators. Both friends are critically injured and their lives are forever changed.

“Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.”

US rights were sold to Andy Ward at Random House and Canadian rights to Nicole Winstanley and David Ross at Penguin Canada by Zoë Pagnamenta at her eponymous agency in New York.  Isabel Wall, editorial director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights in an exclusive submission from Georgia Garrett at Rogers, Coleridge and White.

Wall commented: “Nobody writes like Hisham Matar. My Friends is the story of three friends suspended between their past and future selves, told with intense emotional and philosophical power. This is an indelible novel about love and friendship pressing against the confining limits of history itself.”

Matar added: “This is a book I have been thinking about since the Arab Spring of 2011. Or so I thought until I recently discovered a note, written on the back of an envelope from 2003, where I had scribbled an idea for a book about friends in exile and the emotional country that certain deep friendships can provide. It is a book about how people end up where they end up, and how often that seems to be determined as much by ideology or politics as by personal temperament. It is a book told across a walk, from St Pancras to Shepherd’s Bush, and therefore as well as being the story of these Libyan exiles, it is also a book about London.”

Born in New York City to Libyan parents, Hisham Matar spent his childhood in Tripoli and Cairo and has lived most of his adult life in London. His debut novel, In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award, and won numerous international prizes, including the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and a Commonwealth First Book Award. His second novel, Anatomy of a Disappearancewas published to great acclaim in 2011.

His prize-winning memoir The Return was published in 2016 and was the recipient of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Award, the Prix du Livre Etranger Inter & Le Journal du Dimanche, the Rathbones Folio Prize, The Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize and Germany’s Geschwister Scholl Prize. It was one of The New York Times’ top 10 books of the year. Matar’s work has been translated into thirty languages.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and Associate Professor of Professional Practice in Comparative Literature, Asia & Middle East Cultures, and English at Barnard College, Columbia University.

An English teacher has turned her literary dreams into a reality after moving one step closer to publishing her debut novel.

When she’s not writing, Mikela Bond can be found walking by the sea with her husband, two children, and their spaniel, Nelly, by her side.

And it is that beautiful East Anglian landscape that inspired her latest novel which has gone on to win the 2023 New Anglia Manuscript Prize.

The married mother-of-two, who teaches at Diss High School, won with her unpublished debut novel The Hollow Hours. Set in Norfolk, the book tells the story of a missing girl and the secrets that are contained in the house she vanished from.

Mrs Bond, 40, said: “As an East Anglian writer, I’m lucky to be surrounded by an inspiring landscape and the Norfolk countryside is very much a part of this story.

“Writing a novel is an exciting process and winning this competition and being recognised as a writer is phenomenal.

“I strongly encourage anyone who wants to write and get their work out there to think about joining a workshop or reaching out to writing groups online.”

A creative writing graduate of the University of East Anglia, her novel was also named as a runner-up in the Novel London 2022 competition.

The New Anglia Manuscript Prize, run by local agency Laxfield Literary Associates and in association with the National Centre for Writing (NCW), recognises the best new debuts from unpublished Suffolk and Norfolk writers.

It was judged by Chris Gribble, the chief executive of the NCW, crime writer and publisher Phoebe Morgan, and agency founder Emma Shercliff.

Mrs Bond wins £500 and representation from Laxfield Literary Associates. The shortlisted works were Street Sweeper by Bren Gosling, Funk by Adam Leeder, and Mispers by Hannah Upton.

The Emirates Reprographic Rights Management Association (ERRA) participated in the inaugural regional conference on contemporary judicial trends for safeguarding intellectual property rights in both traditional and digital environments.

The conference was organized by the Egyptian Ministry of Justice with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The conference comprised a number of panel discussions, during which Majd Al Shehhi, director of (ERRA), participated in a session titled ‘Emerging Issues in Copyright: National Economic and Social Development (The Publishing Industry).’

The session was skillfully moderated by Shereen Grace, senior programme-management officer specialising in the copyright sector and creative industries at WIPO.

During the conference, Al-Shehhi emphasised the significance of this inaugural event in the region, as it provided a vital platform to discuss the challenges faced by competent authorities and organisations in safeguarding the intellectual property rights of writers, publishers, and content creators at a regional level.

She further stressed the need to explore strategies and opportunities to establish an integrated system capable of overcoming these challenges, thereby promoting innovation and creativity, encouraging investment, and supporting the sustainable development of the creative and cultural economy in the region.

Al Shehhi also acknowledged the crucial role played by specialised copyright protection organisations, such as the Emirates Reprographic Rights Management Association, in managing the intellectual property rights of authors and publishers.

She stated: “At the association, we firmly believe that copyright is fundamental in promoting progress and innovation. As such, we are dedicated to creating a suitable framework that benefits both authors and publishers and ensures a fair balance between the rights of copyright holders and the users of their works in the UAE.”

bookshop a symbol of hope for publishing’s future

Sharjah World Book Capital Office gave €50,000 to a restoration fund for

Libreria Giannino Stoppani, in Bologna, which caught fire in May 2022

Bologna, March 13, 2023

Sheikha Bodour Al Qasimi has likened the phoenixlike rise of the Giannino Stoppani kids’ bookstore—which was devastated by fire last year—to the optimistic future of children’s publishing and the bookselling sector at large.

 Sheikha Bodour was visiting the recently reopened bookshop, in Bologna, Italy, following renovations part-funded by the Sharjah World Book Capital Office (SWBCO) after flames tore through the building in May 2022.

As Head of the Advisory Committee, Sheikha Bodour instructed SWBCO to donate €50,000 to the fundraising campaign, joining a collective of international donors that helped repair structural damage and recover thousands of damaged books and stock items.

Reaffirming Sharjah’s commitment to promoting and preserving centres of knowledge and learning for young people everywhere, Sheikha Bodour said: ‘Giannino Stoppani’s return to business is a proud moment for the whole publishing industry. Together we have enabled an important kids’ bookstore to pursue its important mission of enriching young minds with literature, and we will continue to support booksellers wherever we can. I’m filled with joy to see the store once again full of curious young readers hungry for stories.’

Established in 1983, the Giannino Stoppani store is part of Bologna’s Palazzo Re Enzo and was named after the hapless protagonist of the 1907 children’s novel Il Giornalino di Gian Burrasca (‘A Bad Boy’s Diary’). One of the 10 leading independent bookshops in Italy, Giannino Stoppani specialises in children’s books in Italian and other languages.

Led by the cultural vision of Sharjah’s leadership, the SWBC Office contributes to preserving cultural and academic institutions worldwide. In 2019, it announced substantial financial support for the McMillan Memorial Library’s restoration project in Nairobi, Kenya, led by local non-profit, Book Bunk.

-ENDS-

World’s foremost network for female publishers ends four days in Bologna that put women front and centre of a global industry still predominantly shaped by men

 Bologna, Italy, March 12, 2023

PublisHer—the movement started by Bodour Al Qasimi to topple career barriers faced by women in publishing—has grown its supporter base, gathered new industry data, and reached more women than ever after occupying its first book industry stand, at Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF).

Throughout the four-day fair, the PublisHer site became a bustling hub for female publishers and the centre of discussions around diversity and inclusion. Events included networking encounters, business meetings, and public discussions on pressing issues, from changing the status quo in children’s publishing, to women helping women in the industry, and the transformative power of mentorship.

During one discussion PublisHer founder and CEO of Kalimat Group, Bodour Al Qasimi, told the audience of international professionals that despite modest progress, real and lasting gender inclusivity in publishing won’t be easy.

‘Our work isn’t done yet—we’re not done balancing the publishing industry and the literary world,’ she said. ‘There are some persistent challenges that stem from mindsets and outdated practices. We still have to make the case and fight for balancing the publishing industry, to give more female publishers the chance to lead and make a difference.’

Guest speakers included Elena Pasoli, director of Bologna Children′s Book Fair; Perminder Mann, CEO of Bonnier Books UK; Karine Pansa and Gvantsa Jobava, president and vice-president of the International Publishers Association; Lisa Lyons-Johnston, president and publisher at Canada’s leading children’s book publisher, Kids Can Press; and Emma House, owner of Oreham Group.

Stand visitors also filled out a digital questionnaire, providing data that PublisHer will be able to draw on when planning future initiatives and activities. Scores of people also subscribed to the PublisHer newsletter, followed on Facebook and Twitter, and joined the professional PublisHer LinkedIn page.

 International Women’s Day networking breakfast

On International Women’s Day (8 March), PublisHer partnered with Canadian publishing house Kids Can Press to host a networking breakfast, which was attended by dozens of female publishing leaders.

In her opening remarks, Bodour said: ‘International Women’s Day shouldn’t just be a day. Every day should be an opportunity to support and celebrate the experiences and successes of female leadership. The publishing community has a big role to play in making every day count for women, in making every story heard, understood, and valued.’

The PublisHer stand also co-exhibited 115 international books, curated by Accademia Drosselmeier / Cooperativa Giannino Stoppani, in celebration of women’s achievements.

About PublisHer

Bodour Al Qasimi started PublisHer in  2019 to address the persistent gaps in female representation and leadership in global publishing. Today, PublisHer has become a vibrant, participative international platform that celebrates the voices and contributions of women who are making a positive difference in the book industry.

To join the PublisHer community of publishers, businesses, donors, and nonprofits, visit https://womeninpublishing.org/supporters/.

Bodour started PublisHer in 2019 by hosting networking events on the margins of book fairs, and it has grown steadily in stature and influence despite two years of virtual-only activity during the coronavirus pandemic.

This year the founder and CEO of Kalimat Group has vowed to level up her initiative, starting with a large stand at Bologna Children’s Book Fair (BCBF), made possible with the support of fair director, Elena Pasoli, who sits on the PublisHer Advisory Board.

The PublisHer stand (Hall 29, B36-C45) has been designed as a forum for debates and speeches (on 7 March), dealmaking, meetings, and an International Women’s Day networking breakfast, which took place this morning in partnership with Canadian publisher, Kids Can Press.

Stand visitors are also invited to answer a digital questionnaire. The data gathered will inform future PublisHer initiatives, which may include updating the 2020 Diversity and Inclusion Diagnostic Toolkit, developing mentorship programs, and setting up other industry events.

Opening the International Women’s Day breakfast, Bodour asserted that publishers have a duty to proactively include women’s voices in their business practices and output.

‘Women (…) still face many obstacles, from gender bias and discrimination to a lack of representation in leadership positions,’ she said. ‘That’s why as publishers we have a responsibility to create platforms and opportunities to amplify women’s voices, to make them heard and, most importantly, to make them understood,’ she said.

To join the PublisHer community of publishers, businesses, donors, and nonprofits, and to support the work to bring gender equity to world publishing can visit https://womeninpublishing.org/supporters/.