Monday to Wednesday was London Bookfair. Due to the famous dust cloud half of my meetings were cancelled and many book stalls remained empty. But Peirene and I had the best fair ever. Honest to God. And I promise you if you read on – there will be no sad, sudden traumatic twist to the story. Total bliss. For three days. And the glow is still written all over my face.

It was of course Peirene’s and my first bookfair as exhibitors. Three beautiful titles displayed on a shelf at the Independent Publishers’ Guild stand. Passers-by stopped in their stride when they spotted my little book babies and they couldn’t resist touching and looking them over. Yes, looks matter and I was pleased I had splashed out and bought myself a new dress for the occasion to keep up with my sparkling nymph.

But we didn’t just look the part, hoping for glances from passing admirers. That could have become a real bore after a while. No, we were indeed very busy with meetings. Unscheduled ones. But often they are the best. A lot of the big publishing houses from abroad didn’t come. But the smaller ones somehow found a way – by car, by boat, rebooking at huge expense onto the Eurostar at last minute. Where there’s a will there’s a way. A group of Swedish publishers got in the car and drove 27 hours. A Canadian publisher who had made it to Amsterdam by plane and then completed the rest by train, had lost all his luggage and turned up in a shirt and trousers he had worn for four days. Perhaps he minded. I didn’t. He pointed me in the direction of a fantastic Spanish book.

Big publishing houses usually offer me their front list - the latest stuff  but all somehow rather similar. Those books rarely even  tickle my interest. This week, on the other hand, I had a number of meetings where I felt there was a “meeting of minds”. I encountered directors of small companies, individual agents with an interesting eclectic mix of texts – in short, professionals with a passion for literature. Only recently I was worried that I would never find any worthwhile Peirene novel for 2012. Now I have a number of real contenders – Italian, French, Spanish and Swedish -  and I can’t wait to read them.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Small publishers have got it all – guts and drive and passion for literature and taste in clothes too. Not even a volcanic eruption deterred us from meeting on this island to show dedication to our books. Power to us, long may we live!