Stirling Centre for International Publishing and Communication is pleased to announce the programme of visiting speakers for this forthcoming semester. Our visitors are, as always, drawn from across the publishing and creative industries but this year some are also chosen to reflect one of the themes of this year’s studies. In 2014, Scotland’s voters will be asked to decide Scotland’s future as an independent nation. This year, at the Centre, our students will look at examples of small nation publishing and will explore how the Scottish publishing scene might change – or not change – after the vote.
Our first speaker on September 19 is Miha Kovač, author of Never Mind The Web; Here Comes The Book and a research colleague of the Centre, who will talk about his work as an academic and publisher in Slovenia. There is no session on September 26 but on October 3 we are delighted to have a visit from Conny Lenz, Publishing Studies alumna (2010-11) and Digital Publishing Assistant at Cengage Learning. Conny will be talking about her route into publishing and her current job at Cengage. The next speaker on October 10 is Edinburgh-based literary agent, Lindsey Fraser, followed on October 17 by Aly Barr, Creative Director at Creative Scotland, who will give his views on the development of the cultural industries in Scotland.
After the mid-semester break the second part of the programme begins on October 31 with a talk from Vivian Marr, Head of Language Acquisition at Oxford University Press, a globally recognised brand in educational and academic publishing. We contrast this on November 7 with a visit from Sara Hunt, Publisher at Glasgow-based Saraband Books who will recount her experience as an independent publisher and discuss the challenges of producing content in both print and digital formats. The next speaker on November 14 is another course alumna (1984-85) and CEO of Publishing Scotland, Marion Sinclair, whose talk will be directly relevant to this year’s course theme of small nation publishing. Please note that Marion’s session begins at 12 noon and finishes at 1pm. Next, we are pleased to welcome Will Atkinson, Publisher at Faber & Faber and member of the Centre’s Industry Advisory Board, to be our penultimate speaker on November 21. Will is an extremely experienced publisher and will focus specifically on the workings of Faber Factory, Faber’s digital production service, which is used by many small publishers in Scotland. Our final speaker, Andrea Joyce, is Rights Director at Canongate Books in Edinburgh, another highly successful and internationally recognised Scottish publisher.
All sessions are held in Pathfoot B2 on Thursdays at 2pm unless stated otherwise above. Please note that there is no visiting speaker on September 26. If you would like to attend any session, please email frances.sessford@stir.ac.uk to register (places are free but limited).