The Midwest and Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Associations have taken their traveling fall conference, Heartland Fall Forum, to Milwaukee this year, and if it seems to the locals like booksellers are everywhere in the downtown area, it's because they are. This is not a conference that remains ensconced in a big hotel, hermetically sealed from a city that likes to socialize over books as much as cheese curds and beer. Cream City is definitely a vibrant and essential backdrop to the week's activities.

The show kicked off on Sunday with tours of local bookstores along with other stores as far as Madison, which is 75 miles away. Monday’s programming, held in various downtown venues, celebrated what makes the Midwest unique: its booksellers, authors, the books published by Midwestern authors and/or set in the Midwest, and even a liqueur produced in Chicago that inspired a book.

The day began with each organization holding its membership meetings in adjacent conference rooms inside the historic Hilton Hotel. While MIBA cheered a 40% spike in bookstore membership since 2022—from 213 members to 321 today—GLIBA noted that it has more than doubled in size since 2018, from 150 bookstore members to 351 today. More than 250 booksellers from both organizations are mixing it up at Heartland this week, with 114 of them first-time attendees.

“It’s an amazing growth, of different types of bookstores,” declared outgoing MIBA board president Kristen Sandstrom, the general manager of Apostle Islands Booksellers in Bayfield, Wis., shouting out to pop ups including this year’s Midwest Bookstore of the Year, La Revo Books. La Revo’s co-owners, Barbara Cerda and Valeria Cerda, spoke of their commitment to bringing books by and for BIPOC readers to people “wherever they’re at,” even those who do not consider themselves readers.

Meanwhile, next door, Lynn Mooney, the co-owner of Women & Children First since 2014—which, at 45 years in business, is the country’s third oldest feminist bookstore—accepted the inaugural GLIBA Bookstore of the Year award. "This work can be exhausting," she said in her address. "Sometimes, Sarah [Hollenbeck, WCF co-owner] and I look at each other and say, 'We just wanted to sell books!' But then we take a deep breath and think about the mission, the history, the undoubtedly many further evolutions ahead—and agree that leading a bookstore with a mission is what keeps us so deeply invested."

An afternoon reception featured a group of Midwestern authors speaking primarily about 2025 fiction releases. Among them were Alice Austen (33 Place Brugmann Grove Press), Nickolas Butler (The Forty Year Kiss, Sourcebooks), Ada Calhoun (Crush, Viking), Emi Watanabe Cohen (Golem Crafters, Levine Querido, Nov.), and Denise Williams (Just Our Luck, Berkley).

Afterward, many booksellers walked two blocks to Stella’s: A Cocktail Dive bar to sample Malört, which one bartender told some booksellers is a “cross between grapefruit and battery acid.” While booksellers slammed down shots, Josh Noel signed copies of his Sept. release, Malört: The Redemption of of a Revered and Reviled Spirit (Chicago Review Press). Even as their mouths puckered, several booksellers recommended it as a great holiday pick, and the pile of 50 copies was quickly gone.

Voices of the Heartland gather

The action then moved back to the Hilton Hotel, where podcaster Ira Madison (Pure Innocent Fun, PRH, Feb. 2025) emceed the Heartland Bookseller and Voice of the Heartland Awards. Noting that he grew up in Milwaukee and reflecting that “talking about books is a gateway to talking about yourself,” Madison recalled his grandmother taking him during his youth to B. Dalton’s in Whitefish Bay, to buy him books and comics.

Madison then announced this year’s Heartland Bookseller Awards for 2023 releases:

  • Picture book: Philip C. Stead for The North Wind and the Sun (Neal Porter Books
  • YA/middle grade: Pedro Martin for Mexikid (Dial)
  • Poetry: Diane Seuss for Modern Poetry (Graywolf)
  • Fiction: Percival Everett for James (Doubleday)
  • Nonfiction: Hanif Abdurraqib for There’s Always This Year (PRH)

The night proved a twofer for Abdurraqib; he also received this year’s Voice of the Heartland Award for his “significant contributions to the literary community, reflecting the values and diversity of the Heartland.”

Presenting the award, Brett Gregory, operations manager of Two Dollar Radio, the 2020 Voice of the Heartland, which published Abdurraqib’s debut collection of essays in 2017, They Can’t Kill Us Until They Kill Us, lauded Abdurraqib for not just being a brilliant writer, but also for the “generosity with his time and attention: he shows up,” Gregory said. “There is nobody more deserving of the Voice of the Heartland Award than the person from the literal ‘heart of it all,’ Ohio, the epicenter of the universe, where hell is real and maybe heaven could be too.”

As the crowd lined up for book signings, Janet Webster Jones and her daughter Alyson Jones Turner, the co-owners of Source Booksellers in Detroit, presented Abdurraqib with a bouquet of flowers. “He loves flowers and always gives us flowers when he comes to the store," Turner said, with Jones adding, “it felt good to finally give him the flowers.” Turner pointed out that Jones was last year’s recipient of the Voice of the Heartland Award: “It’s like she’s passing the baton to Hanif.”

The booksellers then ended a long and festive day by walking three blocks to the main branch of the Milwaukee Public Library for tours and a party in one of Milwaukee’s most splendid public spaces. Heartland 2024 continues through Wednesday evening, but at Monday's awards reception, GLIBA executive director Larry Law announced that Heartland Fall Forum will move to GLIBA country next year: it is to be held in Indianapolis October 12–16.