The Written Nerd

Maybe I'm just lucky. But this was the best BEA I've ever attended. I was lucky, in a way, that it was in New York this year, which made it easy for me to attend on my own dime as the new owner of Greenlight Bookstore... but that did mean I had to work some shifts at my day job at McNally Jackson so that other booksellers could make the show. So keep in mind that there's a lot of stuff that I missed. On Wednesday I was lucky to attend my last Emerging Leaders Council meeting. The national council representing frontline booksellers under 40 has finally gotten a rep from each of the 9 bookselling regions, and there's a lot of talent there. Perhaps we toot our own horn, but we like to think that some of the education the ABA offered this year was partly at our instigation (and there were EL booksellers on a large percentage of the panels), and that the increasing presence and visibility of young frontline booksellers at Winter Institute and regional shows can be traced...

Hi all, As you may have noticed, it's Book Expo America time. This year is a very working (vs. partying) oriented BEA for me, which is all good but very intense. It's also a very intense time with Greenlight Bookstore stuff, so what with the one and the other, I haven't even found time to blog my plans. BUT! I have finally figured out how to Twitter from my phone, so I'll be posting occasional updates on the #BEA2009 hashtag as @booknerdnyc. Lots of other cool folks Twittering too, so hopefully those updates will suffice until we have time for something more substantial. More soon, I promise!