My BCBF: Ali Dougal, publishing director, Simon & Schuster Children’s

Ah, Bologna—I’m so excited to be back! This is my first fair with S&S, so it’s an extra special one for me. Bologna is such a big moment in the children’s publishing calendar, and while Zoom has been a godsend during the pandemic, there is nothing like catching up face to face to really get to know people and make things happen. Scheduled meetings are great, but for me it’s sometimes those chance conversations between slots when the magic happens.

The fair can also be an opportunity to bring an author together with their translation publishers, which is what we did with A F Steadman, author of Skandar and the Unicorn Thief, at our big Skandar celebration dinner last night.

This is my fifth Bologna, over seven years. Going to Bologna was something I had aspired to in my early career, and when it finally happened it was love at first gelato: a whirlwind of back-to-back meetings, frantic reading, snatched lunches in the sunny conference hall atrium and evening engagements.

We have some exciting announcements at this fair: a very special collaboration between Emma Carroll and Lauren Child with The Little Matchstick Girl Strikes Back, a brilliant 11+ action adventure called Bite Risk, just acquired by our fiction editorial director Lucy Pearse and exactly what the market is crying out for. Just before the fair we announced Villains Academy, a knockout young middle-grade series from author-illustrator talent Ryan Hammond—we have our first few offers in, so I’m excited to see what happens there. And we are thrilled to be launching acclaimed poet J J Bola’s children’s debut Fly Boy, illustrated by Clara Anganuzzi… so many reasons for excitement.

I’m a big fan of the annual Dutch party. Weaving your way through the crowd in that gorgeous building, never knowing who you might bump into. I always feel so lucky to be there.

I have so many fond Bolonga memories: wandering around the beautiful city with Laura Ellen Anderson after watching her paint the Amelia Fang panel on the Egmont stand in 2018; late night parmesan-wheel dinners with some of my favourite people.

A big adrenaline-fuelled career highlight was doing the deal for Egmont, alongside Lindsey Heaven, for B B Alston’s Amari and the Night Brothers with Gemma Cooper, over The Bent Agency table in 2019.

My favourite restaurant, and I’m sure a lot of people say it, is Da Fabio. The hubbub, the food that keeps on coming, the giant bottle of limoncello at the end of the meal when you really don’t need it.

My tip for a successful fair is to wear a watch (a tip I should observe myself). Hydrate. Make the most of it, because who knows what the future holds.