Fall Regionals
Random House), Ransom Riggs (The
Conference of the Birds, Dutton BFYR),
Emily St. John Mandel (The Glass Hotel,
Knopf), and Raina Telgemeier (Guts,
Graphix). The show ends with the pop-
ular Books & Brews author speed dating
event featuring 14 authors, among them
Megan Angelo (Followers, Graydon
House), César Cuauhtémoc Garcia
Hernández (Migrating to Prison, the New
Press), and John Frank (Beer Lover’s Colorado,
Globe Pequot).● Altogether MPIBA will feature more than
80 authors. Many of the author event changes
are minor. A women’s breakfast has been
turned into the Women’s Voices Author
Luncheon with a dozen adult and children’s writers, including
Julie Murphy (Dear Sweet Pea, Balzer + Bray) and Jenn Shapland
(My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, Tin House). And the
“Thrilling & Mysterious Author Panel” featuring Peter Swanson
(Eight Perfect Murders, Morrow) and Megan Tifft (From Hell to
Breakfast, the Unnamed Press) is among the education
sessions.
NAIBA Fall Conference
Oct. 15–17
Crowne Plaza
(Cherry Hill, N.J.)● Eileen Dengler, executive director of the
New Atlantic Independent Booksellers
Association, is growing this year’s show
through additional programming on the
opening day, which in past years kicked off
at dinnertime, as well as by expanding the
amount of time that the show floor is open
on Wednesday afternoon to include an extra
hour. As always, cocktails are served at the
exhibit hall. “Reps asked for the extra time,
and I was happy to give it to them,” Dengler
says. The first day’s programming came
from bookstore owners’ and frontline book-
sellers’ requests for more retreats like the
popular owner’s and kids’ spring retreats
that the association has run for more than
half a decade. This year there will be five
afternoon-long retreats for both groups, as
well as gatherings specifically designed for
store managers,
events managers, and frontline hand-sellers.
The preview supper, which traditionally
opened the show, is still in place with a mix-
ture of adult and children’s authors,
including Laura Zigman (Separation Anxiety:
A Novel, Ecco) and Tom O’Donnell
(Homerooms and Hall Passes, Balzer + Bray).● Last year, NAIBA did away with educa-
tional panels and replaced them with round-
tables. The change occurred after Dengler
attended a session at Winter Institute where
her questions remained unanswered. “It both-
ered me,” she says, “that there are only a few
minutes at the end of the session to answer
questions. That’s why I created roundtables.”
With roundtables, everyone has a chance to
be heard, and Dengler chooses topics that
booksellers tell her throughout the year they’d
like to learn more about. These include set-
ting up a pop-up store, buying for margin,
and helping booksellers navigate the resis-
tance or unconscious bias that can surface
when promoting diverse children’s books. In
keeping with this year’s show theme, “You
don’t know what you don’t know,” the pro-
gramming is designed to keep booksellers up
to date on a range of subjects.Laura
ZigmanEmma
Straub©^
g r e gm a r t i n©^ m e l a n i ed u n e a