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How? by Mark Ovenden:

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So the book had a subject, a publisher and a date….but the content – transit maps from all over the world had yet not been approved for use!

With a decision taken to include the official maps of something like 150 cities, a list of the transit operators began to look like the invitations to some kind of international transportation conference! From Atlanta to Zurich, Berlin to Yokohama letters needed to go out – in the local language – to request permission to reproduce their maps.

This as you might guess turned out to be the Achilles heel of the book! Though I could get away with writing in English and my dreadfully amateurish French to over half the cities, Hindi, Korean and Russian were not in my fluencies. I managed to track down German, Spanish, Greek and even Portuguese speakers among my extended circle of friends…but some of the more exotic languages were a stumbling block. So I turned to the multi-cultural restaurants of London and began walking round with an English letter in one hand and a huge leap of faith in the other.

(CAPTION: A letter asking for permission to reproduce their maps - courtesy of a London Chinese restaurant!)

Posted by Penguin Group USA on Wed, 12/05/2007 - 6:50pm. in

Transit Maps of the World, Mark Ovenden

Wed, 12/05/2007

Penguin Imprint Focus: Ace and Roc go to the World Fantasy Convention:

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Ok, so I know I said I would tell you all about A Week in the Fabulous Life of Ace and Roc, but right now I'd like to take everyone on a quick flashback... far into the mists of history...actually last month... it's our time travel trip to the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, NY on November 2^nd-4^th! I thought it would be fun to harken back to this little trip that many of us Ace/Roc editors took a few weeks ago because you will get to see a) if we play well with others and b) some keen pictures that I forced our authors to pose for, with firm promises that they would appear on the internationally renowned Penguin blog.

So here goes...

Friday, November 2^ndPenn Station, 7:45 A.M.
Cigarettes: 0, Calories: 0, Manuscripts in my neon-green wheelie suitcase: 2 [Will I read these manuscripts? Of course not, but everyone knows that carrying work around is almost as commendable as doing it...]
I am late to meet Ace/Roc editor Anne Sowards. She is punctual and chipper. I am tardy and disheveled. Despite the fact that it takes 14 minutes to get a bagel, I somehow make the Amtrak train. Anne and I discover that the Saratoga car is a veritable Hogwarts express-with half of the science fiction & fantasy editors in town on board (Devi Pillai from Orbit, Diana Gill from Eos, and many more!). We arrive in Saratoga around noon. Anne gets stressed out when going to conventions in new cities because she has a slightly challenged sense of direction (sorry, Anne!) so she makes us go on a reconnaissance mission to figure out where the hotel bar is (believe it or not, it is a little hard to find) and where the restaurants are. Then we go to lunch and subsequently take appointments in the hotel bar for 72 hours straight.