In the absence of in-person regional trade shows and conferences the past few years, two Midwestern booksellers who craved connection—Pamela Klinger-Horn, event co-ordinator for Valley Booksellers in Stillwater, Minn., and her “book sister,” Mary Webber O’Malley, who works as a virtual bookseller at large for Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Mo.— began organizing in-person bookseller gatherings on their own.
“We have strived to think outside the box to find other ways to connect with authors and publishers,” says O’Malley, who has traveled more than ever on her own this year to attend out-of-town book events and author talks.
For Klinger-Horn, bookseller retreats have served as a “lifeline.” Even before the pandemic, she regularly hosted lunches and dinners at her home in Chanhassen, Minn. There she introduced local booksellers and other book world insiders to visiting authors participating in the Literature Lovers’ Night Out speakers series, which she founded in 2015. While Klinger-Horn regularly met virtually with other booksellers during the pandemic, by the summer of 2021 she says that she’d had her fill of Zoom and invited a small group of booksellers to her home for a four-day visit. Participants were encouraged to bring galleys to read, talk about, and swap.
This April, Klinger-Horn and O’Malley organized a weeklong traveling bookseller retreat. A half dozen booksellers met to read and talk books at the Ozarks vacation home of Nancy Simpson-Brice, founder of Book Vault in Oskaloosa, Iowa. From there, they drove to Columbia, Mo., and visited Skylark Bookshop on the eve of the city’s annual Unbound Book Festival, which was founded by Skylark owner Alex George. Half of the booksellers stayed for the four-day event.
Late last month Klinger-Horn hosted another small group at her home to attend a Literature Lovers’ Night Out with Therese Anne Fowler for her It All Comes Down to This and visit Twin Cities indies. The group also drove north to Brainerd, Minn., where they spent the day at the Wine and Words literary festival and were joined by Sally Wizik Wills and Jennifer Geraedts, the mother-daughter duo who operate Beagle and Wolf Books & Bindery in Park Rapids, Minn.
“Whether having other booksellers at my house or traveling to see groups of booksellers,” Klinger-Horn says, “that unscheduled time to socialize provides a chance for organic conversation about favorite titles, and a chance to trade ARCs and information.”
