“What Now!?”
Author, research professor, and podcast host Brené Brown will discuss what’s ahead for booksellers with Janet Geddis, owner of Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga. After a year when booksellers, in Brown’s words, maxed out their surge capacity, she and Geddis will look at how to move forward. Their opening keynote conversation, which includes an audience q&a, will be held on Thursday, February 18, 10:45–11:30 a.m. An encore presentation will be offered from 7:05 to 8:05 p.m. that evening and will include an open chat.
Brown’s latest book is You Are Your Best Thing (Random House, Apr.), coedited with Tarana Burke. The anthology collects essays from numerous Black writers, thinkers, and personalities reflecting on their experiences with shame, healing, and dealing with the trauma of white supremacy.
“Novelist as Citizen”
Authors Lauren Groff, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and Colson Whitehead will talk about literature in the wake of political upheaval in this panel moderated by Michelle Malonzo, buyer at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Ariz. It will take place on Friday, February 19, 10:30–11:30 a.m. An encore presentation will be held later in the day, 7:30–8:30 p.m., and will include an open chat.
Groff’s next book is Matrix (Riverhead, Sept.), a historical novel about the 12th-century poet Marie de France. Nguyen’s new book, The Committed (Grove, Mar.), is a follow-up to his Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Sympathizer. Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle (Doubleday, Sept.) is a heist novel set in 1960s New York.
“How to Think Like a Futurist”
Brian David Johnson will discuss how booksellers can think like futurists and shape what happens with ABA CEO Allison Hill on Saturday, February 20, 10:30–11:30 a.m. An encore presentation will be held later in the day, 6:05–7:05 p.m., and will include an open chat.
Johnson is the former futurist-in-residence at Intel and author of the recently published book The Future You (HarperOne), which helps people envision a better future for themselves and their communities.
