EWC campaign #behindeverybook on 23 April: solidarity with and for authors – thousands of writers, translators and illustrators joined the action

Brussels, 27 April 2020

Dear EWC Member, colleagues, friends,
You could say: this was a great party, a declaration of love to authors and their books as well as a movement of solidarity with each other! All over the world, writers, translators and illustrators followed our invitation to join the EWC campaign #behindeverybook

some facts & figures of #behindeverybook is …

• over 2000 Facebook posts from writers, translators, illustrators
• retweeted and re-posted by the EWC, fans, Unions and friends
• average re-post: 1,2
• 1,300 Instagram-pics in 24 hours
• European Writers’ Council reached 65,200 impressions and views of #behindeverybook-postings on Twitter on 23.4. 
• #behindeverybook was trending hashtag on 23.4.
• authors from Russia, New Zealand, Sweden, Malta, Cyprus, Greece, US (Iowa, Las Ve­gas, Texas), United Kingdom, Canada, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Romania, Fran­ce, Flanders, Iran, India, Moldavia, Bangladesh, Dakar, Sri Lanka … joined the movement
• several writers organisations from in- and outside Europe joined us and encouraged their members to take part – i.e. the The Writing University at the University of Iowa, the Authors’ Society of New Zealand, the US Authors Guild, the National Writing Union USA, the Norsk PEN, the Mörderische Schwestern (Sisters in Crime) Austria.
• women writers used Instagram more, while male authors’ first choice was Twitter
• in the photos, several authors are accompanied by a hat, a cat, a dog, but we also found Unicorns, pinguins, foxes, and coffee-mugs with the #behindeverycoffee is ….
• most often the #behindeverybook is … was completed with “an author, a writer, a life / a universe”, but also: “a dreamer, a beating heart, a masochist, a team, often a translator, long and moaning hours of works with trillion post-its”

#behindeverybook in the Author: A worldwide solidarity movement for and with authors — especially in these times.

To celebrate authors, writers and translators, to make the spirits, brains and personalities behind every book visible, is the basic idea of #behindeverybook. The annual UNESCO event World Book Day is the original idea of the Valencian writer Vicente Clavel Andrés to honour the author Miguel de Cervantes, who died on 23 April.

On this day we praise the living authors, who enrich every society with their work and contribute to diversity, democracy and humanitarian education in all areas, with all genres. They are the sources of the book chain, and the backbone of the freedom of words.

The European Writers’ Council says:

THANK YOU DEAR WRITERS AND TRANSLATORS AROUND THE WORLD

Next year, same date (23. April 2021): make it visible, who is #behindeverybook!

Nina George                           Myriam Diocaretz                              and the whole EWC

President                                Secretary-General                             Board