13-15 January 2021

A virtual mini-festival in partnership with The British Library

Three days of inspirational and practical virtual events for anyone interested in activist publishing, designing, writing, making, printing, communicating, printing, blogging, trading, managing, marketing, editing, festivals and fair programming, launching, creating and debating. All now available as recordings on the British Library i-player website.

You can hear from inspirational bookshop-founder and award-winning publisher of Dialogue Books Sharmaine Lovegrove and legend Lennie Goodings of Virago, UK’s longest running feminist press.

Workshops on radical publishing, selling your writing, festivals and feminist marketplaces, design development and cartooning were led by practitioners including from Own It! Literary, tv and film agency, Laydeez Do Comics, Five Leaves Bookshop and British Library Publishing.

The week closed with a panel discussion on challenges and successes in balancing purpose, principles and profit. Speakers included Sofia Niazi from contemporary art magazine One of My Kind and Rabbits Road Press, journalist Roisin Boyd, former editor and writer for Spare Rib, and Catherine Riley, writer, communicator and gender-budgeting guru, including for the Primadonna Festival.

Feminist books and ware are available through the British Library online shop.

We are grateful to the Leverhulme Trust for helping fund this event, and proud to support the wonderful Unfinished Business exhibition at the British Library.

This event is brought to you by The Business of Women’s Words team, in partnership with The British Library.

BOWW logo © Nicola Streeten