Taiwan Brings Authors, Rights Trading, and a Picnic to Bologna

TAICCA and Taipei Book Fair Foundation present a new pavilion and author-illustrators at Bologna. Sponsored.

The design of Taiwan’s ‘Story Picnic’ stand for the 2025 Bologna Children’s Book Fair. Image: TAICCA

By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson

‘Taiwan Story Picnic’

On the approach to the 2025 edition of Elena Pasoli‘s Bologna Children’s Book Fair (March 31 to April 3) and Jacks Thomas‘ Bologna Book Plus, one of Asia’s most significant book markets, Taiwan, is readying the arrival of a Taiwan Pavilion organized by the Taiwan Creative Content Agency (TAICCA) and co-organized by the Taipei Book Fair Foundation (TiBE).

Bologna’s trade visitors will find the Taiwan pavilion in Hall 25 at Stand B118, a presentation of some 128 square meters. Artist Page Tsou has created the Taiwan Story Picnic design, with various shades of green reflecting the island’s various landscapes and ecosystems. Red and white plaids refer to the picnic of the concept.

This year, the theme of the effort is Taiwan Story Picnic, with a plan to “showcase Taiwan’s vibrant stories and illustrations in a lively and inviting atmosphere, reminiscent of a spring picnic.

On the stand—or at the picnic, as it were—there’s to be a dedicated meeting space, a “rights matchmaking area, for industry professionals to have meetings and negotiate rights deals, with pre-scheduled table bookings. Here, you can download a 58-page catalogue created for the fair (PDF).

Also, you’ll find a comprehensive listing of the publishers who are represented, with their rights contacts, Web site addresses, and more.

On the Taiwan stand, you can expect to find winning titles from awards programs including the G0lden Tripod Awards; the Golden Comic Awards; and the TiBE Book Prize’s children’s and young adult categories. You’ll see some of these sections reflected in the catalogue.

A section of “Recommended Titles” are curated from the past three years of publishing.
“Featured Authors” include the work of spotlighted young creators with information on their work and backgrounds.
And a section called “Exhibitors” highlights 122 books from 10 Taiwan publishers, chosen for their potential in international licensing across children’s books, picture books, and comics.

Seven authors are booked to be presented, including Yeou-Yu Chang and Hsu-Kung Liu, both nominees for the 2025 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. That award can go to an author, illustrator, storyteller, or “reading promoter” and is expected to announce its 2025 laureate on April 1 both in Stockholm and at the Bologna trade show at 12:45 CEST (Europe goes to daylight saving time on March 30). The Taiwan group points out that this year there are three Taiwan creators nominated, the third being Chih-Yuan Chen.

Five of Taiwan’s seven authors at Bologna Children’s Bok festival are featured this year. They are, from left, Lin Wei-Ting; Chang Yeou-Yu; Hsu-Kung Liu; Dong Dong; and A-Meow (Pei-Jung Tsai)

Rights and Illustration Events

A quick selection of some of the Taiwan Story Picnic programming—events in many different venues at the trade show:

March 31

2:40 p.m.
The Rise of Emerging Markets in Asia: Licensing in Taiwan
Licensing Conference Room
4 p.m.
Opening Party

April 1

9:30 to 11 a.m.
Let’s Make a Little Book Together
Illustrators’ Survival Corner
2: 45 p.m.
Big Brands & Indie Voices: Exploring Taiwan Children’s Publishing
Bologna Book Plus Theater, The Mall, H29

April 2

10:30 to 11:15 a.m.
Storytelling and Imagination: A Talk with Chang Yeou-Yu and Liu Hsu-Kung
AIE Theater, Italian Pavilion, Bologna Book Plus, The Mall, H29

See the catalog for a full listing and more details.

More on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here, more on children’s books is here, more on the Italian market is here, more on the Taiwan market is here, more on the world industry’s vast field of book and publishing awards is here, more on licensing is here, and more on world publishing’s trade shows and book fairs is here.

About the Author

Porter Anderson

Porter Anderson has been named International Trade Press Journalist of the Year in London Book Fair's International Excellence Awards. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives. He formerly was Associate Editor for The FutureBook at London's The Bookseller. Anderson was for more than a decade a senior producer and anchor with CNN.com, CNN International, and CNN USA. As an arts critic (Fellow, National Critics Institute), he was with The Village Voice, the Dallas Times Herald, and the Tampa Tribune, now the Tampa Bay Times. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman.