L-R: Dame Wendy Pye, Jenny Oliver, Chris Shaw, Catriona Ferguson, Kevin Chapman, Peter Dowling & Alessandra Zecchini
Association Director Catriona Ferguson reports:
It was a joy for PANZ to be back at the Frankfurt Book Fair last week. For obvious reasons we haven’t been able to host a collective stand since 2019 but this year we made our presence felt with a vibrant, stunning stand which provided a beautiful backdrop for some very fine books from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our small but perfectly formed team of publishers on the ground, (Kevin Chapman – Upstart Press, Peter Dowling and Alessandra Zecchini – Oratia, Julia Marshall – Gecko Press and Dame Wendy Pye and Jenny Oliver – Sunshine Books) have all reported positive meetings with promising things to come.
There was also a lot of interest in books and resources from publishers who had a virtual presence and had books and materials displayed on the stand (Beatnik, Biozone, Black Chook Books, EduMaxi, Essential Resources, Global Ed, HUIA, Koa Press, OneTree House) – New Zealand was definitely back with a bang this year.
We received a very warm welcome from the book fair team and were thrilled to be gifted a certificate and some delicious bubbles and chocolates to acknowledge 25 years of the PANZ collective stand at Frankfurt. We’d also like to give a shout out to our trailblazing colleague, Dame Wendy Pye who led the way and has been attending Frankfurt with Sunshine Books for 40 years.
It was also a delight to reconnect with old friends – particularly Joy Reifgens and Christiane and Ann-Sophie Geipert-Arheilger our amazing stand helpers, and to make some new friends including Head of Mission at the NZ Embassy in Germany, Craig Hawke and Marina Wilmerstadt from Education NZ who both came along to our stand party. And on the party, thanks go to the NZ Embassy team for their support in providing some much enjoyed NZ wine and special thanks to Cornelia Loser who helped to ensure that it reached the stand at just the right time.
And now it’s onto the work of following up on all of those meetings and dropped off business cards which will undoubtedly keep our participating publishers busy for some time.
As ever we’d like to acknowledge our supporters, Creative New Zealand, Education New Zealand, Book Systems International and Multi Freight Ltd.
