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IFOA alumni gathering, Athenaeum Hotel, Piccadilly, London, Saturday, April 11th, 2015

The Toronto Literature Festival´s International Visitors Programme, in conjunction with the International Festival of Authors (IFOA), and in association with Harper Collins Canada have displayed yet another pursuit of their vision of building a long term sustainable relationship between leading representatives of the North American literary world and book market and the IFOA European and international alumni.

The IFOA alumni gathering, hosted by Geoffrey Taylor, IFOA Director, together with the top management of Harper Collins and Random House Canada, opened a rare window of opportunity for an informal meeting of a special blend of different international participants.

For Ars Poetica, it was a great privilege that it’s Chair and the Versopolis nominee poet, Martin Solotruk, was amongst the invited. The high profile, and yet pleasantly informal occasion taking place on the eve of the London Book Fair, enabled him to communicate Versopolis concept, vision, as well as its possible outreach to North America.

Within the gathering´s inspiring atmosphere, though primarily tilted towards the fiction side of the literary world, Versopolis project was embraced with interest not only by the IFOA Director, but also resonated well with a representative of Faber and Faber Publishers, which, as we may be hopeful, will lead to a future follow through in some particular forms of collaboration and possible promotion of the Versopolis project and its exciting world of poetry in Britain and North America.