bookseller camp

we're back!

Hey! You’re here. How are you?

Truly the worst question. Why do we even ask this question? I know that the answer is as singular and complicated and fluid as you are. However you are, I sure am glad you’re here.

I come bearing stories, gifts and glad tidings from a wonderful few days spent in Denver, CO at the American Booksellers Association annual Winter Institute aka bookseller camp.

Every year hundreds of booksellers from all across the country (and world!) descend on a particular location to network, celebrate, learn, and commiserate. I want to share a little of what I learned with you.

Bookstore Tour? Yes please.

One of the best parts of the whole conference is something called the bookstore tour. It’s exactly what it sounds like and it’s glorious. Gaggles of booksellers get on giant buses that take us all over the surrounding area to visit local bookstores.

On my tour we visited:

Petals & Pages, a lesbian owned and managed, queer AF shop where I sadly did not get humped by their dog cookie but I still got the sticker.

Rainbow Revas, a mission driven pop-up full of empowering books for young readers.

Poor Richard’s, a fifty year old community store and restaurant in Colorado Springs.

At Poor Richard’s I picked up a book by Andrea Gibson, one of my favorite poets, who also happens to be the Colorado Poet Laureate.

Sudden Fiction, a cozy general bookstore in Castle Rock.

West Side Books, a used and new bookstore I just wanted to get lost in forever.

Does anyone know of a career where I could just go on bookstore tours all over the country forever? Not to brag but I think I would be quite good at it.

The Big One

This year, the opening keynote address of Winter Institute was given by none other than my favorite author working today, Northampton’s own, Ocean Vuong.

photo credit : Shelf Awareness

I did not take this picture. I was too nervous and excited and thrilled to be in my body in space and time at that very moment to do much of anything besides try to absorb word of his remarkable speech. Suffice it to say he had a room of 900+ booksellers in tears.

I did my part as a certified Big Fan to tell everyone who hasn’t read it that they should probably just skip the rest of the conference and read The Emperor of Gladness already.

Much of his remarks centered around the profound power of the question, What do like to read?

As it happens much of my life also centers around that very question so I’ve been flying high.

Publishing Speed Dating

Another significant portion of the conference is spent in presentations by publishers in which they present their books in this wild speed dating format where they circle around tables of booksellers and make their pitch while a giant timer counts down behind them. It would make a really excellent, nerdy reality television show. It also makes me feel very powerful so it’s good it only happens once a year because that could really start to go to my head.

Above is the pile of the advanced reader copies I crammed into my suitcase to take home. The laws of space and time have nothing on a bookseller trying to squeeze a ridiculous number of books into her carry on.

Bookselling is Political

Beneath all the joy, enthusiasm, and book love was a drumbeat signaling that we are working and bookselling in a time like no other. The threats to libraries and bookstores across this country are threats to all of us.

I attended educational sessions on content based threats to store in which stores from across the country detailed the harm they have faced for carrying and promoting books by LGBTQ+ and BIPOC authors. It was a needed and sobering and needed reminder that this work has always been and will always be political.

I also attended sessions on mental healthcare for retail workers and supporting neurodiverse employees in the workplace. I know there are circles in which these topics would be written off as the purview of us sensitive snowflakes. A distraction from the real business at hand. None of it felt like a distraction. I left Denver more aware than ever that we are all we have.

Please take care of yourself. Be kind to a retail worker today. Think carefully about where you spend your money. The small things are the big things and you matter.

Coming Home

Lucky me, I got to come home to Rebecca and our two little dogs. I don’t take that for granted.

Yaya is still mad at me for leaving, but we are working on repair.

I love you. I’m glad you’re here.

Love,

Rosamond