They believe in the right and in education to read, they believe reading is an EXERCISE but also a PLEASURE, a moment of PLAY, RESEARCH and DISCOVERY. They believe that the reader, on the one hand, is directed by the paper or digital tool, while on the other it is he who keeps the thread of his reading process. And they are a publisher which has chosen EasyReading for the textual content of the website and for certain paper and digital publications. Talking to us in more detail about this new publishing adventure is the founder Luana Astore: “A small monster goes on a journey in search of an unknown planet called Telos. He does not know what he will find or if he will arrive: you will find this phrase on opening our website and it is the dream I had and that “gave” the name to what became my publishing house …yes, Telos comes from my dream and no, I’m not crazy“.
What is Telos Edizioni exactly, apart from your dream?
A publishing house dedicated to literature for children and adolescents, stemming from a primordial idea of mine. I was living in Paris, coming from a philosophical education, I was in France for my PhD and I have always been a fan of children’s literature. We are talking about a sector that really works there: there is more sensitivity and attention, also on the part of the Ministry of Education. The publishing world has always fascinated me and, working with children, I decided to combine the two things.
Dyslexia and EasyReading… how did you get there?
My studies are based on the relationship between philosophy and psychology. Children of friends are dyslexic and I tried to understand what was their real problem, why did they not love reading. Why did they pick up a book and close it immediately. Is the problem in the form? In how they see what is “inside” a page? In the contents or in both? My publishing project puts these thoughts together and tries to create books that are complete, both in terms of illustrations and content. I looked for better tools, better than the standard, and in my research I came across EasyReading. Among all the high readability fonts, it is the most aesthetically pleasing and is certified as well as being functional. An excellent choice, I would say, with hindsight…
You are 32 years old and have a good brain… why did you come back in a period in which one tends to buy a one-way ticket from Italy?
I came back for this project. When I started my PhD I thought I would only come back with a concrete project, not simply due to inertia. And so I started working on my dream, I obtained some European funds to start and the rest is history.
And where did you find the courage to invest in publishing and in paper?
Ours is clearly both paper and digital publishing, developed together with a French partner, Mobidys, and multilingual (Italian, English, French, Spanish) from the outset. Children’s publishing is a dynamic market, especially at the international level, and then I thought that doing things for children was the greatest creative act I could accomplish.
In Telos you are all women… beloved maternal instinct!
There are four of us and none of us is a mother yet: there’s the psychologist Fabiana Illiano, Gioia Santacaterina, an expert in treating children’s emotional, cognitive and motor disabilities, Ilaria Papiri who teaches foreign languages to children with learning problems and then there is me with my degree in philosophy. There are also another two women: the illustrator of the first project Marta Pantaleo and the author Lilith Moscon. This team is not the result of a choice or targeted selection but is the result of a series of random encounters that have transformed Telos Edizioni into a female project.
What direction you will take in the near future?
We have started working on another project dedicated to dyslexia after Il mago Tre-Pi. We are talking about a series of books and a specific insight, always on the same topic, a piece of work that requires a long research phase, which is why it will not see the light before one year and will involve another two Italian researchers.
Fairs. Where will we find you?
In Paris (16/19 March) and in Bologna (26/29 March).
And if an author or illustrator wants to send you a manuscript or submit some drawings?
That’s what we are waiting for. By all means write to submission@telosedizioni.it