The Professional Days will also include discussion spaces, such as the first version of the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Congress LIJ (April 19-21).

This year, the Bogota International Book Fair (FILBo), organized by Corferias and the Colombian Chamber of Books, will include in its program 13 professional conferences, and activities aimed at various specialized audiences, which will bring as a novelty for 2023 the first Congress of Children’s and Young Adult Literature LIJ and an International Booksellers’ Meeting.

The conferences are aimed at specialized audiences, and publishing professionals and are in addition to FILBo‘s traditional cultural program, which includes talks by authors and academic guests, book signings, and the year’s publishing launches. «We seek to open spaces for meetings and business opportunities between national and international players in the book sector and offer training spaces that respond to the needs of the sector,» says Emiro Aristizábal, executive president of the Colombian Book Chamber.

Among the activities is a new edition of the International Business Fair (April 19, 20, and 21), the most important event for publishing agreements in Colombia, where the purchase and sale of copyrights, printing, and translation, and the opening of opportunities for authors and publishers to explore new markets, such as digital platforms for audiovisual content.

Some of the outstanding international figures that the International Business Fair will bring are Juan Casamayor, founder of the Spanish publishing house Páginas de Espuma, one of the most recognized for its work in the dissemination of short stories; Andrea Montejo, leader of the literary agency Ident Literary Agency, one of the voices of authority in the Latin literary market in the United States; and Sander Schwartz, founder of the U.S. production company Sandman Television and Film Co.

The professional conferences will also include discussion spaces, such as the first version of the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Congress (April 19-21), which will bring together authors, illustrators, publishers, and other actors in this publishing segment to share their experiences, analyze the processes of publishing professionalization and learn about the work of their international peers. The idea is to outline lines of action in the short and medium term.

Along these lines, the first International Booksellers Meeting will offer an exchange of experiences between booksellers from Colombia and other countries, with which the Colombian Book Chamber seeks to open a space for training and strengthening new, traditional, and regional bookstores.

In addition to these activities, there will be the Editorial Translation Forum (April 19, paid event with registration); the National Meeting of Style Correctors (April 28, paid event with registration), and the International Seminar on Copyright (April 26-27, paid event with registration). The Book Forums will be held on April 20 and 21, with talks aimed at training and professional updating for the entire publishing chain; the general theme will be the publishing chain as a living ecosystem; and FILBo Emprende (April 24 and 27) will bring a series of commercial and training activities to strengthen publishing ventures to the current market opportunities.

There will also be the Meeting of University Publishers of Mexico and Colombia (April 19), which will analyze trends in this publishing segment and share experiences together on the publication of academic work in Latin America and Leo Independiente (April 24 to 29), a series of free-entry meetings organized by independent publishers to publicize their catalogs of works and authors among fair attendees.

For its part, Fundalectura will organize Public Reading: Spaces, Strategies, and Programs (April 27 and 28), a meeting between mediators, teachers, librarians, and trainers from different countries on the role that reading plays in society today and how written culture is a freely accessible heritage for all humanity.

Finally, the illustration will be present in a day with two different spaces, the International Illustration Festival Ilustropía (April 27 and 28, paid event with prior registration), which will bring together artists from around the world to create public training sessions, and FILBo Ilustra, (April 28 and 29, paid events, with prior registration), in which there will be two sessions, the first with Mexican illustrator Roger Ycaza, who will give a master class exploring the difference between building your own book and one for a writer, and the second with Brazilian author Mariana Massarani, which will consist of a workshop for new creators to design a proposal in the «accordion book» format.

The public interested in participating in the various events can find out more details on the fair’s website or write by e-mail.

The Bogota International Book Fair (FILBo) is organized by Corferias and the Colombian Book Chamber and in 2023 celebrates its 35th anniversary with Mexico as a guest of honor.

Text and photo: Colombian Chamber of Books