Everyone in publishing has their own love story with books, and today we get to hear from Emma Lowe, director of the London Book Fair (LBF). Emma and I will be discussing the importance of humanity and publishing, like creating inclusive spaces to support diverse reading needs and neurodivergent engagement. We also dig into the hot topic of AI and how AI intersects with the world of publishing.
Emma shines a light on how LBF has integrated self-publishing into a traditional publishing trade show. Self-published authors have gained a huge amount of space in the publishing playing field, especially when traditional publishing methods are slightly less relevant for authors.
Whether you’re an aspiring author, a published author, a publishing professional of any kind, or somebody who’s just publishing curious, you are sure to gain a lot from this conversation.
With over two decades of experience spanning publishing, media, and events, Emma Lowe took up the role of director of LBF in July 2025. She began her career at RX working as head of sales for LBF, before spending nine years as commercial director at The Bookseller, followed by roles as publishing account director at GlassBoxx and head of events at HarperCollins. She is widely regarded as a careful, detail-oriented leader with a warm personality and deep roots in the UK publishing community.
Get to know Ema:
Book recommendation:
- A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster
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The human side of publishing, with Emma Lowe of the London Book Fair | Episode 258 Transcript
These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.
Stacy: Welcome. Welcome. Today I’m really excited to welcome one of the most influential women in publishing, Emma Lowe, the director of the London Book Fair. And whether you’re an aspiring author, a published author, a publisher, editor, publishing professional of any kind, or somebody that’s just publishing curious, you are sure to gain a lot from this conversation. Emma and I will be discussing the importance of humanity and publishing, creating inclusive space, the integration of self publishing into a traditional publishing trade show, AI and of course her story and how it led to her role at the London Book Fair, which we will heretofore refer to as lbf. Let me formally introduce Emma.
Stacy: With over two decades of experience spanning publishing, media and events, Emma Lowe took up the director of the London Book LBF in July 2025. She began her career at RX working at on LBF as head of sales before spending nine years as commercial director at the bookseller Founded, followed by roles at Glassbox as publishing Account director and HarperCollins as head of events. She is widely regarded as a careful, detail oriented leader with a warm personality and deep roots in the UK publishing community. Welcome Emma. I’m so happy to have you here today. Thank you.
Emma: It’s good to be here. Stacy:
Everyone in publishing has their own love story with reading and, or writing and I would love to hear yours.
Emma: It’s. It wasn’t love at first sight, I have to be honest. It was more a case that I maybe a slow boil. Maybe a slow boy slow boil. Rom com I wanted to. I, I did a degree in European studies, French and Italian, realized I wanted to work in events, knew I loved planning them and applied for a job straight out of university working for an event company which happened to be read exhibitions and the job I applied for was six months of the year working for London Book Fair and six months the year working on an international jewelry show. So I did that. It was a marketing kind of admin job and I absolutely loved it.
Emma: I got to see events from the ground up. When you’re working, you know, as an admin or as an exec, you kind of, you get some sight over everything and then I had a brilliant boss who I owe quite a lot to really, who saw what my skill set was, even though I couldn’t see it, and offered me a sales exec position on London Book Fair full time to cover a maternity role. And I was like, oh, I don’t know about that. I don’t know if sales is my thing. I don’t know if that’s what I want to be doing. She was like, just try it. If you don’t like it, go and do something else. And I owe her an awful lot for just kind of seeing what I was doing, seeing what I was good at and giving me that chance.
Emma: And I did it. It was a sales exec role on London Book Fair and I never looked back. I kind of fell into my tribe and realized that they were the people for me. So that’s kind of where my love affair with publishing started and I think it’s just continued because working with people who care about what they do is one of the most rewarding things. It can be difficult, but it’s also one of the most rewarding part of kind of employment opportunities I think you’d ever have.
Stacy: Oh, I love that. I think that’s such a nice way to describe this industry because pretty much everybody is in it because they love books and want to bring more books out into the world, which is a pretty nice space to be in. The London Book Fair is such an amazing event. I had the opportunity to attend for the first time this year.
Emma: You did!
Stacy: Yeah, it was my very first time attending the LBF and I also went to the Writers Summit. So that was really cool because it’s a little bit of a smaller ease into the gigantic London Book Fair. For those listening that aren’t familiar with the London Book Fair, can you just give us a rundown of what it is and why it is such an important space in publishing?
Emma: Sure. So the London Book Fair, first off, I should say is a business to business event. It’s not like a literary festival or, you know, Cheltenham or Hay Festival or any number of other festivals that you might have heard of. It’s a B2B event and is. It’s an event in March that publishers from all over the world gather at to generally. I mean, the major trade there is the sale of ip, the sale of an acquisition of foreign rights of so IP rights sales. That’s the major trade. So publishers are looking for books to buy from literary agents, so from authors. And they’re also looking to then sell them to other people who want to publish them in other languages. That’s the major trade that is going on in the background all the time.
Emma: The reason that you are at the Author Summit is that we also get over a thousand authors through the door. And one of the other priorities of LBF that we get constantly from visitor and exhibitor feedback is that they come to be educated about what’s happening in the industry, what the latest is, any tips and hints. Publishers love being in the know, they love being on the inside of things. So getting to hear from people who are able to guide them in their journey in whatever role they do, that’s also quite a big piece of work for us. And that’s why we have the Author Summit to try and help authors navigate the show because it can be a little bit overwhelming.
Emma: So we have the Author Summit on the Monday so that when authors arrive at the show on the Tuesday, hopefully they are slightly more prepared for what’s, what’s going on. It’s a three day show, mostly appointment driven, so if you’re coming and you don’t really have an appointment or a reason to be there again, it can feel exceptionally overwhelming and possibly occasionally a slight waste of time because you can’t actually get to anyone. If you’re just there to see what the trends are and see what’s going on in the publishing industry, then it’s the perfect place to be.
Stacy: Yeah, I definitely align with that. I think, you know, just reflecting from my own experience and thinking about the authors that I work with, a couple of things that were extra valuable. The author HQ stage was super. It was so well done. I also really appreciated how, you know, of course it’s a traditional trade, traditional publishing is what that space is for. But, but I was kind of surprised and heartened to see how self publishing was also like we had self published authors alongside traditionally published authors and it felt like it really gave a space of access to a lot of authors while providing education around how to do it. Right. I thought that was really interesting and I wasn’t really expecting that. I’d love to know a little bit about the thought process on that programming.
Emma: It’s interesting that you know that a, you saw that and be that, you know, that’s the, I’m delighted that’s the way it helped you feel and we’ve done quite a lot of work around author and the authors and how welcome them into the show and it’s not, it’s not always been the most welcoming of places for authors. I think it’s probably LBF to say and that’s not something I’m necessarily very proud of. I think traditionally published authors and those who are independently published are, have a slightly different relationship now than they used to. I think self published, I call them independently published. But you know, self published authors have gained a huge amount of space in the kind of publishing playing field, but they never had even four or five, six years ago.
Emma: I think particularly in genre based writing or in non fiction, if you have a specialty, if you have a kind of a field of expertise and you’re able to write to it and you have a preset community or a developing community of people who are interested in what you have to say, the traditional publishing methods are slightly less relevant possibly to you. That’s not to say that I don’t 100% believe in the, in the profession of publishing. I do. I think that being edited properly is vital. I think that making sure that your book looks great and having a proper cover is vital. I think, you know, the processes that publishings brings to a book I think are second to none and I don’t want to underestimate that.
Emma: But I do think for self published authors they have in many ways found ways of reaching their readers and being professionals without the kind of the infrastructure that traditional publishing brings. I also think they’ve got further down the road in being able to find validation through self publishing rather than waiting for the stamp of a traditional publisher which all of which we want to recognize at London Book Fair because it’s certainly happening and we’ve worked quite closely and we will continue to work ever closely with the alliance of independent authors who we worked with on the Author summit that you came to as well as a society of authors who are the more probably the original body for them.
Emma: So I think it’s definitely a trend that we are aware of that we recognize and that we have to support because we need everybody’s stories. It’s not just the ones that come through a traditional route and the LBF is the poorer if we’re not able to welcome those people.
Stacy: I love that perspective. And I did notice the Ally, the organization that you mentioned was all over the place and I sat and chatted with, oh, his name is escaping me, one of the co founders for I think about an hour at their company. What a lovely caring group. I’ll be sure to leave the link to them in the show notes of this conversation. Another favorite, personal favorite that was again a little bit surprising to me. But so Happy and so to see it. And so such an enriching experience was the Salon with the English pen and you had some incredible programming on the intersection of literature and human rights. You know, authoritarianism. I mean, it was. Those were some of the most profound conversations I have sat in on in a very long time.
Stacy: Can you tell me a little bit about the decision making around that? Because that was a whole day of programming.
Emma: And we work, I think LBF is a platform, we have a platform to say things and we forget that at our peril. And when we’re given the stage to stand up for what we know to be right is a probably a slightly problematic word for what we believe helps promote freedom of speech. Whether we agree with what is said or not, I think we have to grab that with both hands. So we work very closely with English pen, who program the Salon and a number of the other organizations that work with them as well. And I think it’s. I, I just don’t see, I can’t see how we run London Book Fair without it because without freedom of speech we don’t have the books that we need. And books, especially at the moment, are so important in getting information out.
Emma: So yeah, we work with them. In fact, we’ve already had one kind of exchange on email with them about what we want to be doing for next year. And it’s a critical part of what we do. I think the other interesting thing that you said is that you’re surprised at something and I think that’s what we aim to do as well. We want London people to come to London Book Fair, have a general idea of what they’re going to do, have their meetings, know roughly what they’re going to do. But we also do want to surprise them because that’s what being at an event is like. When we log on to Zoom, we know who we’re going to see, we know you, we know what’s going to happen, we know roughly how long it’s going to take.
Emma: Whereas when you are at an event, a live face to face event, you have no idea who you’re going to bump into. And I think that is, and I will repeat this to my dying day, even though it’s so obvious that is the brilliance of a live event, that you don’t always quite know what’s coming next.
Stacy: Yeah, I think now more than ever we’re really craving that as people just to be with other people in these kind of spaces. Another thing that I know was really important to you personally in the creation of this event was inclusion. I noticed there was. I can’t remember what it’s called now, but there was a corner, like an inclusive corner right before you entered a really big hall. So that was really neat, the placement. And I think you and I both know that this is a huge need in publishing. Not just across the things we normally talk about, race, ethnicity, LGBTQIA plus, those types of things. Things, but also disability. You know, both visible, invisible disabilities. I’d love to know both how you thought about it this year and also how you’re thinking about inclusion and inclusive spaces.
Stacy: Oh, you also had a sensory room, which I thought was very cool how you’re thinking about this as you. I’m sure you’re already starting to get ready for next year because it’s like, you know, it’s just around the corner now, even though it’s like, you know. Yeah, yeah. So how are you thinking about this? As you plan?
Emma: Yeah, I do. I mean, I have very strong and very close personal reasons to think that accessibility is important. My nephew has educational learning needs and I’m his godmother and he’s. I saw a picture of him last week. He has an ability to bring joy into the world that nobody else can do. I don’t know anyone else who’s able to show joy like he is. And I think people like that need to be protected and we need to be as close and learn from them as much as we can. And I certainly benefit from every moment I spend with him. And I think because of that’s informed how I wouldn’t have done this. You know, he’s four. I probably wouldn’t have done this six or seven years ago. Everyone has stories. It’s what were talking about, freedom of speech.
Emma: You know, if we are not harnessing and trying to throw the net as wide as we possibly can for stories, then we have. Our view of the world is narrow and, you know, it’s less colorful and frankly, less joyful. So I think that’s really what kind of led me to the. To kind of work with these, the women who put the accessibility and inclusion hub together. And they brought in all kinds of charities and organizations who exist to help people. And they’re not. Sometimes they’re not even what we would call books. They’re kind of sheets of paper with drawings on them that people who are non verbal or who have struggle, who can’t, you know, for whatever reason read, are able to look at and engage with.
Emma: So that in some way, they are able to engage with a story that may not be by turning a page, that may just be by looking at some kind of images in sequence in. On a piece of paper, but in some way, they are telling a story. And if we’re not doing that, and if we’re not including all those voices, what are we doing? And I’ve just got a school trip going past my window, and there’s 30 kids who are four, all being dragged up a hill.
Stacy: It’s a great backdrop to this conversation. Yeah, I love that you mentioned that also, because I think sometimes the world of literature, especially like the kind of literary fiction, literary nonfiction, can be kind of highbrow and a little exclusive in how they think about reading. But especially for children and adults with additional learning needs or neurodivergence, reading takes place in a lot of different ways. It doesn’t necessarily look like opening a book and silently reading it, you know, like a neurotypical person would. So I love that you brought that up. I know. Also, audiobooks were highlighted at the. There. And another thing that I was thinking about a lot, just there’s a ton of AI programming, which makes sense because AI is everywhere.
Stacy: But one of the things that I thought was really interesting around some of those conversations, particularly with the CEO of Audible that came in and did a keynote, is about knowledge expansion and accessibility, also with audio. I know my son also has learning and educational needs, and he, you know, reading an actual book is not his access point right now, but he loves listening and he loves, you know, immersing himself in story. And I think that we have to. This industry has to evolve to acknowledge all of the different ways that people engage with reading. It doesn’t look this one particular way. No.
Emma: My little nephew has a Tony’s box.
Stacy: So does my son. Oh, I love it.
Emma: Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And if we are not meeting the person where they are able to look at the story, then what are we doing?
Stacy: Yeah, well. And also, written storytelling evolved from oral storytelling anyway, so it’s like. It’s just kind of going back to those roots of where we started and where books have evolved from. So. Yeah. Tony box. Tony box. Major shout out. Because those. Those are so great. Yeah. And my. My. My favorite is. My. My favorite book is the Little Prince. It was just such an early impact for me, and they made a Tony of the Little Prince. So my son has gotten to that. And. Yeah, it just makes me so happy when he’s listening to it.
Emma: I think, Linda, that’s something that were talking about at London Book Fair this year, anyway, is, are we meeting the reader where they meet the story? And it’s an example I’ve used a number of times, so people probably will have to forgive me if they’ve heard me talk about it. But we have a theme park in this country called Thorpe park, and there’s a Gruffalo ride in Thorpe Park. Yeah. And it is more than possible that some children will not know that the Gruffalo is a book. And that’s just the way it is because that’s the educational environment they’ve grown up in. But if we’re not ready to kind of meet the child and say, oh, yeah, you enjoyed the ride, Great, fantastic. Did you know that it was a book?
Emma: You know, what kind of conversations are we having if we only want to talk to them about books when they’re in a bookstore, in a library? I think, you know, you kind of got to think about. And I actually know the person who’s, you know, they do work, the publisher does work with the ride and they do, you know, they do brilliant stuff around it. But I do think that’s an example of where, you know, the reader will read, will encounter the story in an unusual place and are we ready to catch them?
Stacy: That’s a really interesting way to think about it. And, you know, one of my points of curiosity when I get a chance to go deep with somebody and, you know, have thoughtful conversations, is to ask them their internal experience when they read. Because what I’ve come to be aware of is that I have one experience when I read. My daughter has like a full cinematic experience when she reads. Some people have no inner narrator and no images in their. In their mind at all, ever. So if you think about that, the way that we all experience books is very different. And for some people, the access point might be audio, it might be visual, whereas my access point might be the written word. And I think, like, that is at the heart of inclusion, isn’t it?
Stacy: To meet people where they are in the experience that enriching.
Emma: And it’s really important to do that. And I think, you know, sometimes the publishing industry and books are seen as elitist anyway, and we don’t always help ourselves with that, I think. And our job is to continue to work with that and try and.
Emma: Help people to understand that, you know, books are for them. I mean, I think that, you know, that’s why the national year reading in the UK this year is so important. And it’s just about going all in and you know, reading whatever it is you want to be reading. If, if it’s a manual to how to fix a washing machine and it’s nonfiction, fine. I mean, not that people are going to want to read that necessarily, but, you know, I always use the example of my son. My daughter read very early and reads, still reads precociously and is fine. Picked up a book, gone with it. My son, I mean, generally used books to build things. And I was like, oh my gosh, he’s going to be some kind of addict on a bench in a park by the time he’s 14.
Emma: And I failed as a mum. And then I realized he was looking through LEGO catalogs. So he wasn’t interested in the story, as we would think, as my daughter thought about stories. He wanted the story of how something was built and he would sit and look at it for hours. So once I figured that out, I could then help him engage with, you know, with other books that were how to books or books about cars or how to fix things, going to the moon rockets, that kind of thing, which he was great with. But I realized, you know, stories don’t have to be having lots of characters in and a beginning and an end. They can be a story that you’re telling yourself in your head as you’re looking at things. And I think that’s just as valid.
Emma: Books are only one way of approaching a story.
Stacy: I think it’s just listening to this. Obviously this is for me a very thoughtful conversation. But to know your position at the London Book Fair and the posture that you take toward this, I think is such an important and forward thinking way to approach publishing. Because I think there’s, you know, we’re at such an interesting time where like there’s a risk of just like closing down and going, nope, this is just how things are, or of opening up and exploring and being curious. I’d love to know from you again. I mentioned that there was a lot of programming on AI at the London Book Fair for good reason. As you have been, as you were thinking through the programming, as you know, listened in, I don’t know if you had any time to listen because you were always, I have to say,.
Emma: But I was involved in the programming.
Stacy: But as you know, had some, even your own internal dialogue and conversations with people leading up to the LBF. I’d love to hear from you on your perspective on how AI intersects with the world of publishing. What are you hopeful about? What are you concerned about?
Emma: I always listen this question somebody else asked Me this question during the LBF and I was like, so my, in my world I’m generally worrying about loosing cues and brews. Those are the things that affect my day. So have people got access to lose? Have they got the coffee that they want and like and how long are they having to queue for something? And they’ve got enough places to sit and eat and talk. So AI doesn’t drink coffee. Coffee yet. AI doesn’t need the toilet yet. And AI doesn’t generally turn up at London Book Fair. So in my world, I mean of course I can use it, you know, when I’m preparing documents or you know, whatever. But at the moment, because I am so engaged in a human kind of environment and the human requirements around that, I don’t really often.
Emma: It’s not that I don’t think about it, of course I think about AI, but I don’t have to engage with it in the same way that other people do because it’s not a customer, it’s not a client of mine.
Stacy: Maybe another way to ask the question is as you were preparing for the LBF, what questions were you trying to answer in the programming or explore? Maybe not.
Emma: That’s, that’s a LBF question, I think reminding publishing that they are, they have huge talent and they have a skill and they have a profession and that AI cannot do some of those jobs. It can do a lot of them and it can help them, but it cannot present some of the fine judgment that has been learned over years and years of watching human behavior and to know what soul looks like. Yeah, and that’s what publishing is about. It’s about looking at the soul of a question. I mean non fiction, you know, the soul of a, an issue in society or the soul of a character in a book. And AI can do many things, but it hasn’t got to the soul yet. So I think that’s how I was kind of working with it.
Emma: To remind publishing that it has a soul and not to forget it and not to undervalue it. Because bringing that to their work is what differentiates them from AI.
Stacy: Yeah. And I would say of the sessions that I attended, I didn’t leave feeling scared. You know, it was more like kind of. I was very, I was encouraged by the conversations. But I think just seeing all the people, how many people were there, seeing all the deals being made and I even. I was so surprised at how many people I met that I found out where they were from and I was like, oh, do you know so and so. And they’re like, yeah. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Amazing. You know, and just, I think just the very human aspect of it was very encouraging.
Emma: I think that’s generally because I’m surrounded by the people that I’ve been working with for many years. Often I think that’s why I.
Emma: Don’t get frustrated about conversations about AI because they’re so important, but I do think, I think they have their place and we should be talking about it, but I don’t think it’s everything. And you walk into, you know, we have 32,000 people coming to that show over three days.
Stacy: You can’t.
Emma: That isn’t, you know, we, I don’t know, I just think that is humanity and you forget that as at its peril, at our peril.
Stacy: It was a very, like, vivid picture of humanity. And I was chatting with. I can’t remember her name right now, but one of the people that was helping organize the LBF with you, and she said, did you go up and look at the deal making tables? And I was like, not yet. And so I went where she told me and I went up there and I just watched it and I was like, this is what all of us are craving right now is human. Whether I’m not at the table, so I’m not the one having the human interaction, but actually witnessing human interaction and having human interaction, it feels like almost like a primal need for a lot of people right now because we’re in our screens and devices all the time.
Emma: I was watching an Instagram post the other day from somebody who was kind of saying that kind of thing, that they had gone to the arrivals lounge of an airport and just watched it for a couple of hours just because it was a busy, buzzy hub airport, just because they wanted to see what that felt like. That actual, you know, when two humans meet each other, what that, you know, that the kind of emotion that brings. You don’t get that anywhere else. And that’s. It’s not quite like that at lbf, but there are people who have been working together for years and years. And so there is certainly an aspect of reunion and catching up and following people’s lives. I mean, you do. You go through all kinds of things with people.
Emma: And I do think there’s a real people, like publishers, like stories, and everyone’s following everyone’s story generally through the fairs. And that again, that’s why it’s so important.
Stacy: As you think about, you know, crafting a human experience of this size. You know, alongside the. What did you say? Lou’s news cues and bruise.
Emma: I’ve got a T shirt with it on.
Stacy: That’s great. What other things are you thinking about in really making this a, you know, uniquely human experience for attendees?
Emma: I’m actually do. I’ve got to do a strategy plan on that right now. So I actually think about it quite a lot. But I think what I’m mostly thinking about and this isn’t, it’s not just a jolly or a day out. London Book Fair has to serve a purpose. It’s there for people to go and. Have their business needs met. Generally that’s the job, that’s what we’re supposed to be doing. But are they going to go back to their desk the next day, the next week, whenever it is and say okay, I can do my job better because I was at London Book Fair and if they can’t, then we’ve missed something.
Emma: So it’s about inspiring people and equipping them and leaving them fulfilled in a way that they are then able to go back to their, you know, their positions and bring something extra to what they’re doing. I think it’s about inspiring and educating them and equipping them. So my constant question really, when we’re programming seminars, what three things are people going to come out of this seminar with? What are they actually going to learn? What are the concrete takeaways when we bring authors in for Author of the Day? Okay, publishers meet authors every day. What are we going to use these authors to say about publishing? How are we going to show and fight for publishing space in the rest of the creative industry and the rest of the entertainment world? So I think those are the questions I’m generally asking.
Emma: Are we helping publishers to do their job better and are we helping publishing to fight for its space, its well deserved space amongst the other creative industries and maintain kind of their role as an, as an entertainment and educational source.
Stacy: I like that perspective and I did feel like the programming on the education side was very practical and useful and thoughtful and you know, to your point, of course, this is that deal. It’s a deal making trade show. People are coming to meet. But you provide so much value. You know, outside of that, I’d love to hear a little bit about anything you can share with us about next year’s London Book Fair for anybody that’s interested in attending.
Emma: The dates are the 16th to the 18th of March and we are moving venue. We’re going to excel in East London. The Reasons really are that we felt that the London Book Fair was the largest show that Olympia held was very, it started to feel tight. And there are things that we’d like to be able to do that we can’t do. We couldn’t do at Olympia even once the renovations were finished. So we’ve taken the leap. It’s a leap of faith. And we’ll be at Excel next March. We’re working on a number of seminar propositions already. We’ll have, we’ll have more theaters than we had this year because we’ve had such good feedback. I will definitely have the Author Summit. I have the academic conference on the Thursday. We’re working on a market focused territory.
Emma: That means that a country will come in and we will try and use that time to educate people about doing business with them. The first year will be all about getting people to feel like their new home feels comfortable. So I’m doing quite a lot of work around helping people to understand how to get there, that the Elizabeth line takes you there. You know, all of that kind of when you move somewhere new, you have to figure out, you know, where your bakery is, where the nearest cash point is, all those kinds of things. That’s what we’re doing. For all of these people who are.
Stacy: Changing location, that’s very exciting to. Yeah, it’s exciting to be in a new space, but I’m sure it’s a huge challenge because a lot of things have to change to accommodate this new space. And sometimes people are not comfortable with change at first, but, you know, we’re actually pretty adaptable and I’m sure it’ll all be great. Emma, I’ll ask you the question that I ask all of my guests, which may be a hard question for somebody in publishing, but I’d love to know if you could share one book that has impacted you know, something that has really stuck with you, impacted your life in a meaningful way. What would it be and why?
Emma: It’s a really good question. It is quite a difficult one, but I read A Room of the view, E.M. forster’s brilliant book about a woman. I mean, read it for yourself. No spoiler alerts. A woman who spends a summer in Italy. And I, after I did my A levels, I spent a year in Florence for, you know, for those of you who don’t follow A levels, I was 18, left, went to Italy, didn’t speak a word of the language and work there in a boarding school for a year. Learned the language came home fluent. It was hardest year of my life, but I loved it. And Room Interview is set in and around Florence and Fiesolo.
Emma: And I think it the, I could read it and read it again, but I think so much of the book is asking what you value in life and how to go after it. And I think it’s quite an old fashioned book. But for me it still rings true in that you, if you don’t know what’s important to you, then you’ll probably find it harder to find happiness.
Stacy: I love that. I love that recommendation. We’ll be sure to link to that book in the show notes. And I know I read it a long time ago, but you’re inspiring me to read it again.
Emma: A long book. It’s not and it’s quite simple, but I think its message is super powerful and it was for me anyway.
Stacy: Yeah, I do find that a lot of the books that I read when I was in my, you know, early 20s, like late teens, early 20s, those formative years really stick with me. The Little Prince that I mentioned earlier.
Emma: Exactly.
Stacy: I read them from that time, you know, and it like forms your worldview and it has such a special place. So thank you for sharing, Emma. Thank you for this absolutely wonderful conversation today.
Emma: Well, thank you for inviting me so.
Stacy: Much to think about and your just authenticity and care and the way that you’re really guiding such an important event in publishing. I’ll say on behalf of everybody in this industry, thank you for all the care that you put into it.
Emma: Oh, well, thank you. It’s a privilege. I’m the luckiest girl in the world with this job. I love it and I just hope I won’t get let you guys down. You have my word. I’ll do my best.
Stacy: Well, thank you for joining me today, Emma.
Emma: All the very best. And keep writing those, keep writing, whatever you’re writing. It’s really important.
Stacy: Thank you to our listeners, viewers for joining us today. I hope this conversation encouraged you on your author journey and just, you know, just uplifted you today and gave you hope for the future. Thank you as always to Rita Domingues for her production of this podcast. If she was not here, you would never get to listen to this because she does all the work and I am so grateful and I will be back with you before you know it.
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