book Fair / festival bookmarks

bookfair noun
1:  a display or exhibit of books typically by a group of publishers or bookdealers for promoting sales and stimulating interest
2:  a fair or bazaar at which books are sold or auctioned to raise money for some worthy cause

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Featured Book Fair Bookmark
6th International Feminist Book Fair

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The 6th International Feminist Book Fair (IFBF), billed as a key event in the international publishing industry, was held at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne from 27-31 July,  1994.  This was the first time the IFBF was held in the Southern Hemisphere and appropriately the theme of the fair was Indigenous, Asian and Pacific Feminist Writing. It was a feast of feminist writers, publishers, booksellers, distributors, workshops, book launches and discussion sessions, including one on 'Radical Feminism around the World'. 

Over 20,000 people (mostly women) attended, a record for IBF attendance at that time.   The IFBF had previously been held bi-annually in London (1984), Oslo (1986), Montreal (1988), Barcelona (1990), and Amsterdam (1992).

This bookmark, a favourite treasure in my collection, has become rather battered and bruised from frequent use over the years (I now look after my special bookmarks much more carefully and this one is now archived rather than used).  I love this bookmark because of what it represents and promotes and because two of my very favourite women are represented on it - the superb Australian cartoonist Judy Horacek and the astonishing NZ writer Keri Hulme, whose novel The Bone People (one of my all time favourite books), won the Booker Prize in 1985.