Break Through Blocks and Get Published, 13 May
2026-05-13 15:00 - 17:00 (Europe/London)
This is a rare opportunity to spend time with a novelist and an editor, hearing from them about what it takes to break through creative blocks – and get your work published.
This event will be held online via MS Teams on 13 May 2026 from 3pm-5pm & is free to attend, but you need to register here.
Dylan Morrison has known he wanted to be a writer since roughly age five. His fanfiction, which he’s been posting online for nearly two decades, has been translated into more than fifteen languages and read by millions across the globe. A queer trans man himself, Dylan has a particular passion for telling stories about complex, layered queer characters, and for depicting those characters finding joy, self-acceptance, and love.
Dylan is based in Cleveland in a home with too many books for anyone to read in a lifetime, and a frankly excessive amount of jam. His novels Fall Into You and Recipe for Trouble are available now, and his third book – Second Helpings – will be published on 21st May 2026.
Hannah Bond is a freelance editor of commercial fiction. Previously, she has worked in-house for major traditional and digital publishers including Orion, Hodder & Stoughton, Bookouture, and Amazon. In a former life, she trained as a chef.
We’ll hear from Dylan and Hannah about what you can do right now to make your best work and find routes into publication. There will be illuminating conversation, and plenty of time to ask questions.

CBCP seminar: ‘It is a worthy project, but […] the public is satiated’: Publishing Holocaust Testimonies from East-Central Europe, 14 May
2026-05-14 17:00 - 18:00 | Room 127, Edith Morley Building, University of Reading, RG6 6EL, United Kingdom
Speaker: Dr Joanna Rzepa – Senior Lecturer, Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies, University of Essex

This research seminar is a hybrid event & is free & open to all

To join us in person come along to Room 127, Edith Morley Building, University of Reading (Whiteknights campus), RG6 6EL
To join via MS Teams, please register here

In this talk, Dr Joanna Rzepa will examine the translation and publishing history of Holocaust testimonies from East-Central Europe. Exploring the production and circulation of selected survivor narratives since World War II until the fall of the Iron Curtain, she will interrogate British and American publishers’ agendas and editorial practices, which she situates within the broader context of the cultural politics of the Cold War.
The talk will consider censorship regimes that shaped the construction and circulation of testimonial narratives during the Cold War, paying particular attention to the changing political and historical status of the Holocaust in East-Central Europe and globally. It will also bring to light cases of complex publishing trajectories of narratives such as Mary Berg’s Warsaw Ghetto Diary (1945), which – while originally written in Polish – only exist in various translations, retranslations, and backtranslations as the original source texts have never been published and, in some cases, are no longer extant.
About our speaker:
Dr Joanna Rzepa is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Literature, Film, and Theatre Studies at the University of Essex and a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow. Her research interests include translation history, Holocaust writing, and publishing studies.

4th CBCP Postgraduate Symposium, 19 May 2026
2026-05-19 09:00 - 17:15 | Global Study Lounge, 2nd floor, Edith Morley Building, University of Reading (Whiteknights campus), RG6 6EL, RG6 6EL
The Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing (CBCP) is pleased to announce the 4th Postgraduate Symposium will take place on Tuesday, 19th May 2026. This will be a hybrid event and is an opportunity for PhD students and Postdoctoral researchers to present their research, engage in discussions on book cultures and publishing, and connect with a broader academic community within the University of Reading and beyond.
This year’s hybrid symposium will explore how archives can be used to reconstruct agency and cultural transmission in book and print cultures. It will be free to attend and refreshments will be provided.
Venue: Global Study Lounge, Edith Morley Building, University of Reading (Whiteknights Campus)

To attend any of the Stream 1 talks online via MS Teams, please register here.
To attend any of the Stream 2 talks online via MS Teams, please register here.
Registering to attend the symposium in-person has now closed.

9.00 – 9:20 Arrival and refreshments

9.20 – 9.25 Welcome and Introduction

9.25 – 10.55
Stream 1: Archiving children’s reading cultures and publishing ecosystems (chair: Sophie Heywood)

Jessica Andrade-Tolentino – What makes a children’s book? Publishers’ strategies in transforming adult literature into picturebooks (online)
Anagha Gopal – Mayil Will Not Be Quiet (about reading)!: Constructing a child’s archive of contemporary Indian children’s reading in English (online)
Dina Tuasuun – Women, Faith, and Children’s Publishing in Indonesia: Decolonial Readings of Religious Book Culture (online)
Johari Imani Murray – From Bulletin to Blueprint: Paper Trails of Change and How the CIBC Shaped Children’s Publishing Ecosystems (online)

Stream 2: Publishing Archives (chair: Cristina De Luca)

Monica Lucioni – A constellation of archives: on the making of Jules Laforgue’s first anthology of poems in Italian (1945) (online)
Clara Farmer – Brand memory: the Hogarth Press and the publication of Olivia by ‘Olivia’ (1949) (in person)
Minjung Ha – Reading Across the Atlantic: Virginia Woolf, the Yale Review, and the Construction of the American Reader (online)
Margherita Orsi – Recovering La Tartaruga’s legacy: a journey through Milanese archives (online)

11.00 – 11.15 Coffee break

11.15 – 12. 45
Stream 1: Archives and books in political discourse (chair: Cristina De Luca)

Molly Uhlmann Lindberg – Authors as laborers and capitalists. Political self-publishing in 1970s Sweden (online)
Meryem Selva Ince – The Social Realist Hit in 1970s Turkish Children’s Literature: Marginal Authors, Themes and Visual Aesthetics (online)
Sharla Attala – Stitching the Past into the Present: A patchwork of memories (in person)
Arina Stoenescu – Reconstructing the agency of the tehnoredactor in Communist Romania – 1948-1989: A story that a state-socialist colophon can tell (in person)

Stream 2: People’s trajectory and agency through archives (chair: Hyei Jin Kim)

Marcus Leaver – Paul Hamlyn and Generational Change in Twentieth-Century British Publishing (online)
Reanna Brookes – The Archive as Practice: An Exploration of the Winifred Gill Papers (in person)
Sophie Thompson – Crafting the Socialist Child: Arts and Crafts Pedagogy in Walter Crane’s Pothooks and Perseverance (1886) (in person)
Giulia Pellizzatto – Global Readership, Transcultural Contexts: The Case of Daisaku Ikeda  (online)

12.45 – 1.30 Lunch

1.30 – 2.30 Workshop with MERL

2.30 – 2.45 Coffee break

2.45 – 4.00
Stream 1: Typography developments through the archives (chair: Abeera Zishan)

Hanny Imania – Transforming genre, reconfiguring script: Javanese print culture under colonial print technology (in person)
Yuseon Park – Digital revival: inheriting the analog legacy (online)
Chandark Pradhan – Bengali chirography as a spectrum: evidence from the archives (online)
Fraser Muggeridge – Towards a History of Alternative Typesetting (in person)

Stream 2: Print production, circulation and readers (chair: Pritha Mukherjee)

Jessica Purdy – Circulating Knowledge: Continental Imprints in Provincial Seventeenth-Century England (online)
Michelle Michel – Book pirates: Villains or victims? (in person)
Deborah Lyons – “Swallows Perched on Barbed Wire”: Readers in South Africa’s Final Years of Apartheid (online)
Anamika Mohanta – Tracing the ‘Native Reader’ in 19th-Century Western India: Print, Agency and Readership in the Case of the Bombay-Poona Native General Library (online)

4.00 – 5.00
Stream 1: Alternative forms of archive (chair: Nicola Wilson)

Elena Hueso Garcia – Materiality, Discourse and Cultural Transmission: Contemporary Picturebooks on Migration as Archival Interventions (online)
Treensari Ghosh – Democratized Publishing: Fanfictions as Digital Archives (online)
Daisy Johnson – “Here is the truth as I write it”: The representation of young authors in early to mid-twentieth century children’s literature (in person)

Stream 2: Politics of page design (chair: Abeera Zishan)

Angelika Wozniak – The communicative role of textbooks and guides on book design published in Poland between 1945 and 2000 in the context of socio-political changes (in person)
Ksenia Papazova – The Materiality of the Page as a Photographic Filter in Neovintage Books (in person)

5.00 – 5.15 Closing remarks

CBCP Symposium: People in Publishing: Diversity, Leadership and Publishing’s Futures, 29 June 2026
2026-06-29 10:00 - 17:00 | Henley Business School, University of Reading (Whiteknights campus), RG6 6UD
Date: Monday 29th June 2026
Time: 10.00am – 5.00pm
Venue: Henley Business School, University of Reading (Whiteknights Campus)
Registration to attend the symposium has now closed.
A booklet for the symposium containing the programme schedule & short biographies of the chairs and speakers is available here.
(Please note: For standard delegates, we will charge £10 to cover a sandwich lunch, and morning & afternoon refreshments. Students & independent researchers can attend free of charge. Online attendance is also free of charge)
Schedule
10:00 – 10:05: Welcome & introductions (HBS G10)
Marrisa Joseph – Associate Professor of Organisation Studies and Business History, Henley Business School, University of Reading

10:05 – 10:35: Opening Address: “Building Diversity in the Media Industries” (HBS G10)
Joanna Abeyie MBE – Former Director of Creative Diversity BBC, Founder BlueMoon Consultancy  (in person)

10:35 – 11:30: Panel: “Bridging the Gap: Academia and Industry in Dialogue on EDI in the Publishing Industry” (HBS G10)

Moderator: Fiona McLachlan, Business Relationship Manager, Knowledge Exchange & External Partnerships, University of Reading
Panel:

Melissa Carr – Lecturer in International Human Resources Management & EDI Director at World of Work Institute, University of Reading (in person)
Vaseem Khan – Crime Fiction author (in person)
Emma Shercliff – Laxfield Literary Associates (in person)

11:30 –11:45: Comfort break (HBS Foyer)

11:45 – 1:00: Research Papers: “Geo-politics and Global Structures” (HBS G10)
Chair:  Jack Harrington – CEO, British Academy of Management
Panel:

Hyei Jin Kim (University of Reading) – “Who Governs the Flow of Books?: The Legacy of the Traditional Market Agreement” (in person)
Karishma Koshal (University of Exeter) – “The Foundations of the Anglophone Trade Publishing Industry in India” (in person)
Frances Weightman (Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing) – “Becoming a Reluctant Gatekeeper: A Case Study of the Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing” (online)
Maria Belen Riveiro (University of Buenos Aires/University of Newcastle) – “Rethinking Bibliodiversity: the Universal Put into Question” (in person)

1:00 – 1:45: Networking lunch (HBS Foyer)

1:45 – 3:15: Lightning Talks & Research Papers Parallel Session

Stream 1: “Commercial Approaches to Diversifying Publishing”
Chair: Sophie Heywood (University of Reading)
(HBS G10)

Stream 2: “Networks & Institutional Power”
Chair: Cristina De Luca (University of Reading)
(HBS G04)

Bronwen Price (CEO Seren Books) – “Inclusive Commissioning: Dethroning the Gatekeepers” (online)
Liciane Correa (Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janiero) – “The Past and Present of Freelancer Work in Book Proofreading in Brazil” (online)

Nicola Daly (University of Waikato) – “Indigenous publishing in Aotearoa New Zealand: A Case Study” (in person)
Amanda K. Allen (Eastern Michigan University) – “Visible Invisibility: Women’s Professional Autonomy and U.S. Children’s Publishing, 1919–1973″ (in person)

Agata Mrva-Montoya (University of Sydney) – “Accessibility Champions as Diversity Leaders: Driving Publishing’s Inclusive Future” (in person)
Chrissy Taylor (University of Waikato) – “Gender and Sexual Identity in Aotearoa New Zealand: Library Acquisition Policies in Relation to LGBTQIA+ Communities in New Zealand” (online)

Megan Farr (Bath Spa University) – “Culturally Responsive Publishing Models” (online)
Kanupriya Dhingra (BML Munjal University) – “Beyond the Publisher: How Bookstores, Bazaars, and Libraries Shape Independent Publishing in Delhi ” (online)

3:15 – 3:30: Coffee/tea break (HBS Foyer)

3:30 – 4:30: Roundtable: “Digital Platforms and AI in the Future of Publishing” (HBS G10)

Moderator:  Dominic Lees, Associate Professor in Filmmaking, Convenor of the Synthetic Media Research Network University of Reading,
Discussants:

Basak Bak – Lecturer in Law, Copyright and AI, University of Reading (in person)
Simon Rowberry – Associate Professor of Publishing, UCL (in person)
Julie Cohen – Author, PhD Candidate, University of Reading (in person)

4:30 – 5:00: Keynote: “Inclusive Talent Pipelines” (HBS G10)
Katy Shaw – Director of the UKRI/AHRC Creative Communities Programme; Professor of Publishing & Writing, Northumbria University (online)
Introduced by Nicola Wilson, Professor of Book and Publishing Studies, University of Reading

5:00: Wrap up followed by an informal CBCP social/drinks (HBS G10)

The Languages of Children's Books: Celebrating the National Year of Reading at the University of Reading
2026-09-17 09:00 - 17:00 | University of Reading, London Road Campus
Co-organised by the Centre for Book Cultures and Publishing and Centre for Literacy and Multilingualism at the University of Reading, in partnership with Outside in World and World Kid Lit month.
This mini festival will be held in person on the London Road campus of the University of Reading, with some sessions offered for online participants.
The Languages of Children’s Books: Celebrating Translation and Linguistic Diversity
Languages are a central part of bringing diverse books to readers, and ensuring those stories speak to them. This one-day festival celebrates the work taking place across different sectors of the of the children’s book world (academics, advocacy organisations, creators, educators, librarians, publishers, translators) to promote children’s access to stories in translation, multilingual storytelling and linguistic diversity in their books. As part of the National Year of Reading in the UK, we believe it is important to showcase the many ways in which the languages of their books can inspire young people to get reading.
The mini festival will be structured around panel discussions, interactive workshops, showcases, and exhibitions. Confirmed speakers and exhibitors include:

Jake Hope, The Carnegies
Dr Megan Farr, Books Council of Wales
Dr Darren Chetty and Professor Karen Sands O’Connor, authors of Beyond the Secret Garden: Children’s Literature and Representations of Black and Racially minoritised People
Dr Anish Harrison, National Literacy Trust
Professor Sabine Little, University of Sheffield
Dr Sophie Liggins, University of Essex
Dr Charlotte Ryland, Stephen Spender Trust/ University of Oxford
Sarah Ardizzone, Translator
Anam Zafar, Translator/ World Kid Lit
Pushkin Press Children’s Books
Thames & Hudson
Otter-Barry Books
Mantra Lingua
Milet Publishing
The Emma Press
International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) UK

Full programme and registration details to follow soon. For more information contact Sophie Heywood s.l.heywood@reading.ac.uk.
This event has been generously funded by the AHRC Impact Accelerator fund, the Centre for Book Cultures & Publishing and the Centre for Literacy & Multilingualism.
