VIPs, inaugural fellows announced for SWF 2020

The Australia Council for the Arts has announced the guests attending the 2020 Visiting International Publishers (VIPs) program, to be held from Wednesday, 29 April to Friday, 1 May, alongside the Sydney Writers’ Festival.

The 11 guests are:

• Federico Andornino, editorial director, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, the Orion Publishing Group (UK)
• Jon Baker, president, Baker Literary Scouting (US)
• Erica Berla, co-founder & literary agent, Berla & Griffini Rights Agency (Italy)
• Peter Borland, vice president, editor in chief, Atria Books, Simon & Schuster (US)
• Tamar Brazis, editorial director, Viking Children’s Books, Penguin Random House (US)
• David Gressot, head of foreign literature, Editions Actes Sud (France)
• Simon Lörsch, acquisitions editor, Suhrkamp Verlag (Germany)
• Aurelie Pregliasco, editorial director, fiction, Gallimard Jeunesse (France)
• Emilia Rhodes, editorial director, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers (US)
• Sandra Rothmund, editor, Thienemann-Esslinger Verlag (Germany)
• Tao Wu (Nick), editorial director, GUOMAI Culture & Media Co Ltd (China).

This year for the first time, the Australia Council will partner with the Copyright Agency’s Cultural Fund to support three VIPs as the inaugural Copyright Agency VIPs fellows. They are:

• Teresa Pütz, editor for international fiction, S Fischer Verlag (Germany)
• Michael Reynolds, editor in chief, Europa Editions (US)
• Lindsey Rose, executive editorial director, Dutton, Penguin Random House (US).

The VIPs fellows will present an additional event for all Australian publishers and agents to broaden the reach of the VIPs program and to share information on key publishing insights. More information on the event will be provided in late February.

An industry forum and networking events will take place on 29 April, followed by two days of business meetings, where international guests select the Australian publishers and agents with whom they’d like to meet for one-on-one meetings. To request a meeting, Australian publishers and agents need to complete an online form by Thursday, 27 February for the Australia Council to collate and submit to the VIPs, with the outcome of requests to be confirmed by the end of March.

A full program of events, including times and locations, will be updated on the VIPs 2020 web page by the end of March.

The VIPs program aims to promote rights sales of Australian titles in overseas markets and to strengthen the ties between Australian and international publishers.

Category: Events Local news