Emmanuel Iduma is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. Born and raised in Nigeria, he has contributed essays and stories to journals, magazines, artists' books, and exhibition catalogues. He is the author of The Sound of Things to Come (first published as Farad in Nigeria), and received a 2017 Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation grant in arts writing, for his blog A Sum of Encounters. He is a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts, where he obtained an MFA in Art Criticism and Writing. In 2017, he was associate curator of the Nigerian pavilion at the Venice Biennale. He is the author, most recently, of A Stranger's Pose.Interview
Vanda Krefft is the author of The Man Who Made the Movies: The Meteoric Rise and Tragic Fall of William Fox (HarperCollins, November 2017), the first in-depth biography of Twentieth Century Fox founder William Fox. A former entertainment industry journalist based in Los Angeles, she has an BA in English and an MA in Communication, both from the University of Pennsylvania, and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa.Interview
Joy Sigaud is Editor of Editions Lifestyle: Black History Month magazine. She has edited and produced and number of publications including BHM 365, The Windrush 2019 Commemoration magazine and Expansion Today (Nigeria). She currently produces Editions Review newsletter; is guest contributor for a number of publications including The Voice, the Kensington Magazine and she has written for the UNHCR refugee publication With You. Through the music, she raises awareness of many of the issues she writes about by organising charity shows and concerts with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Joy was born in England and has lived in both Jamaica, Nigeria and spends much time in France.
Interview
Justin Cox, a native of New Zealand, has spent his working life in book marketing. As a school boy, he worked in the warehouse of Penguin NZ. Later, he worked at HarperCollins NZ where he acquired a vast range of skills. He is now the Chief Executive officer at African Books Collective, the largest marketing and distribution firm for books published on the African continent. At ABC, together with African publishers, he has pioneered the interaction of African publishers with the US, UK and worldwide, particularly in developing systems in the digital age.
Interview
Elliot Agyare is Chief Executive Officer of Smartline Publishers, a leading publisher in Ghana. He is also the Immediate President of Ghana Publishers Association. He previously served as a member of the Oversight Committee of the Ghana Private Sector Development Strategy, the Board of the Ghana Book Development Council and the Minister of Education's Advisory Council. Agyare is currently President of the Commonwealth Book Publishers Association.
Interview
Adedapo Gbadega is currently President of Nigeria Publishers Association. Also, President and Chief Executive Officer of Rasmed Publishers Limited. Following the acquisition of Rasmed in 1996, Adedapo ran the Publishing firm ever since, and has made it a pace setter in the publishing industry of Nigerian Educational Sector.
Since being appointed CEO in 1996, Adedapo has led the transformation of Rasmed Publishers Limited from a traditional print publishing company focused only on English language publishing, to a dynamic print and digital publisher with broad expertise in foreign language publishing and more than $1.5M in digital revenues yearly. The publishing firm now boost of over 200 employees who are dedicated to the success of the publishing firm.
Adedapo.S. Gbadega holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science and Statistics (B.SC.) from the renowned Ogun State University now known as Olabisi Onabanjo University. He also holds a master's degree in Business Administration (M.B.A) from the prestigious Obafemi Awolowo University. Adedapo has also attended and completed various management courses within and outside Nigeria.
Interview
Dr. Michiel Kolman, PhD. is Senior VP of Information Industry Relations at Elsevier and President of the International Publishers Association. He is the executive sponsor of Elsevier Pride and was listed two years in a row in the FT's Top100 ranking of most influential LGBT senior executives. Since joining Elsevier in 1995, he has held various core publishing roles in Amsterdam and Tokyo. He launched one of the first online journals in the industry in 1996: New Astronomy. Michiel was Managing Director in Frankfurt, Germany. For 10 years, he spearheaded academic relations for Elsevier, building up a global network of ambassadors engaged in strategic discussions with research leaders. Prior to Elsevier, he worked for Wolters Kluwer in a division that is now part of Springer Nature. He holds a degree from Leiden University in the Netherlands and a PhD in astrophysics from Columbia University in New York, where he studied with a Fulbright scholarship.
Michiel serves on the board of the Accessible Books Consortium that aims to make books available for the visually impaired. He also joined the board of the Workplace Pride Foundation supporting LGBTI workplace inclusion.
Interview
Kristenn Einarsson is the chair of IPA's Freedom to Publish Committee. He is also Managing Director of the Norwegian Publishers Association. Einarsson has been in the publishing business for more than 40 years. He is the President of the Bjornson Academy (for literature and freedom of expression) and the chair of the board of two companies in Television distribution. He has previously been CEO of The Norwegian Book Clubs and Kuunskapsforlaget. He has also been the Chair of the Norwegian Film Fund and the Norwegian Film Council.Interview
Michael Curran founded Tangerine Press in 2006. For the first seven years Curran published and bound the books after work as a builder, at weekends. A serious injury at the start of 2013 meant he had to leave 'The Building Game' and went full-time with the press later that year. In his own words:
"I landed myself with a back injury in January 2013. At 43 years of age I suddenly had to reassess everything. Tangerine was all I had so went head on with that, to try and make it a viable proposition"
Tangerine Press authors and artists have been longlisted and shortlisted for awards such as The Edge Hill Short Story Prize, Republic of Consciousness Prize and the Athens Photobook Festival. Their books have been reviewed in Times Literary Supplement, The Independent, The Irish Times, Morning Star, New Statesman, The Scotsman, The Sunday Herald, Hackney Citizen, Black Country Bugle, Bookmunch, The Skinny, Never Imitate, Urban Fox, The Manchester Review, The Penniless Press, Stride, Humble Arts Foundation, American Suburb X, Dazed & Confused, &c.
Media coverage of the press itself includes: Times Literary Supplement, The Londonist, Courier, BBC Radio London, Beatscene, The Bookseller, The Irish Times, BBC 6Music’s Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service and a special feature on Channel 4 News.Interview
Gbenro Adegbola, C.E.O of the publishing firm, First Veritas, was born in 1958 to the founder of the famous Methodist Seminary, Sagamu, Reverend E. A. Adeolu Adegbola, and a school teacher mother. One of four children whose careers span academia and electoral justice at the UN, the family unit he spoke about is a clear exponent of the tradition of accomplishment which makes his achievements far more of an expectation than a surprise. With a degree in Dramatic Arts and African Literature in English from the University of Ife, he ventured into the Oyo State Broadcasting Corporation where he remained a dynamic practitioner until a massive laying-off campaign spearheaded by the successor to Governor Bola Ige, the renowned politician whose daughter Adegbola would go on to marry.Interview
A Bachelors degree in Theatre Arts & Literature from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife, South-West Nigeria and a Masters degree in Film Production from Leeds Metropolitan University in the UK, have equipped Bankole Olayebi for the leadership of Bookcraft, a high-profile publishing firm based in Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. An Edo State man despite his Yoruba name, Olayebi brings to his publications, the influence of his early experience as arts, culture and lifestyle producer at Edo State Broadcasting Corporation.Interview
