Following a day packed with celebrations inside and outside the Hilton Hotel in downtown Milwaukee, the Midwest Independent Booksellers and the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Associations got down to business on Tuesday and Wednesday at this year’s Heartland Fall Forum.

At this year's show, the exhibits were placed in three small ballrooms located on two floors of the hotel. Response to the unconventional set-up of the exhibit was mixed, with a number of exhibitors and booksellers unhappy that the exhibits were separated as well as the congested, narrow aisles and high noise levels that ensued. GLIBA director Larry Law explained that the decision was made to set up the trade show in three rooms because one of the two larger ballrooms available was not accessible to people with mobility issues, and the other large ballroom was needed for the rep picks breakfast and Tuesday’s lunch. “I know it was confusing at first, but I think it all worked out,” Law said, pointing out that all three exhibit areas bustled all day.

As expected, the latest offerings by beloved Midwestern authors were among the hot books of the show, including A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler (Sourcebooks, Feb. 2025) and A Lesser Light by Peter Geye (University of Minnesota Press, Apr. 2025). Janet Webster Jones, the co-owner of Source Booksellers in Detroit, said she is eager to read Butler’s latest novel about lost love and reconciliation because his presentation on Monday had been so compelling.

Verlean Singletary, the owner of Da Book Joint in Chicago, said that she is most excited about Connie Briscoe’s latest novel, Chloe: A Novel of Secrets and Lies (Amistad, Mar. 2025) as “she hasn’t written in a long time.” Singletary said that Da Book Joint, which is housed in a shipping container on Chicago's South Side, is moving soon into a larger and more conventional space. “I’m looking at several spaces,” she said, “And will be signing a lease in a week or so.”

Deb Covey, the owner of Blue Dog Bookstore in Springboro, Ohio (near Dayton), raved about a picture book, Spooky Lakes: 25 Strange and Mysterious Lakes That Dot Our Planet, by Geo Rutherford (Abrams, 2024). “The lakes are all over the world; anything that can bring the world together for kids is good," she said. Covey, who worked as a book buyer at Joseph-Beth Bookstore in Dayton before going into teaching 20 years ago, is opening Blue Dog on August 4, 2025, and told PW that she is “so excited” to return to bookselling.

Emily Schroen, the owner of Main Street Books in St. Charles, Mo. said that her top pick is Where Shadows Bloom by Catherine Bakewell (HarperCollins, Feb. 2025). She called the book “a YA Sapphic fantasy and a beautiful, lyrical love story that is just so atmospheric; the writing is so lush and transformative.”

A Day of Education

Wednesday was a day of education, beginning with the Marquee Breakfast speaker, Eve Ewing (Original Sins, PRH, Feb. 2025), a University of Chicago sociologist who studies the impact of race and racism upon education in the U.S. Ewing engaged in a lively conversation with #AllwaysBlack podcaster Cree Myles that quickly zeroed in on the thesis of her latest book: how and why schools in the U.S. have perpetuated racism from the beginning.

“You cannot understand how race and racial hierarchy work in the U.S. without understanding schools,” Ewing said. “Schools are the laboratory in which racism is honed, maintained, and normalized.” She used as one example a school she once worked at on Chicago’s South Side where the (Black) students were taken on field trips to the local jail. Noting that Heartland marked the first time she had talked about Original Sins, Ewing said that she wanted to change the world "one pencil at a time."

Afterwards, booksellers told PW that the presentation was, in the words of Pamela Klinger-Horn, event coordinator for Valley Bookseller in Stillwater, Minn., “interesting, educational, and inspirational.” Alyson Jones Turner, the co-owner of Source Booksellers in Detroit, noted that she and her mother and business partner are both former teachers and agreed with Ewing’s findings: “it’s hard but it’s true.” And Tom Lowry of Lowry Books was so blown away by Ewing that he started reading the book while waiting in line for the Moveable Feast, which featured more than 30 authors speed-dating pitches of their books.

The day of education continued with sessions on dealing with such topics as Edelweiss; rising costs; cybersecurity basics; working with authors; and using photography to market one's store. The day – and the conference itself -- concluded with the session, “Turning Humor and Engagement into Social Media Success: Lessons from the Milwaukee Public Library,” demonstrating how the MPL uses Tik Tok, humor, and pop culture to engage readers. Heartland's organizers also conducted a book auction and related swag to benefit Binc that netted $5,400 to assist booksellers in need.

Reflecting upon her 10th anniversary as a bookstore owner as well as 10 years of attending Heartland, Main Street’s Schroen called the regional gathering, “the most welcoming show I go to.” Also marking her 10th anniversary as a bookstore owner, Nina Barrett of Bookends & Beginnings in Evanston, Ill. marveled at “how many first-timers and young bookstores are here. It shows tremendous faith in the survival of bookstores at a time when we are still hearing about gloom and doom. The resilience and passion of people selling books have been greatly under-estimated.”

Heartland Fall Forum will take place in Indianapolis October 12-16, 2025.