The Small Bore Books squad travelled to Melbourne in early May to investigate and play a small part in the second annual Melbourne Art Book Fair hosted by the National Gallery of Victoria.
It was exciting to be in a room full of publishers, from the large and established to the small and specialist, and heartening to see how many people visited (and bought books!) over the weekend.
There were some familiar names in the mix,
including, funnily enough, my own.
We were interested to check the fair out, as we’re keen to hold a stall ourselves in the future. I also spoke about Small Bore Books on a panel as part of the fair’s public programme, thanks to our friends at 3ply.
The panel was a chance to articulate some of the ideas we’re mulling over, about what it means to republish the past, to insert a text back into circulation. We do this because we’re interested in hearing the original voice, again. While the copy emulates the original, it is a new work that has a dialogue with the original, and we want to be honest about that shift. We see the new iteration as a pointer back to the original, rather than an improvement or an update. It’s certainly not 2.0.
Melbourne was stimulating and gave us plenty to think about, and to aim for.
Emma Bugden, Editor
smallborebooks.com 