The board of directors of the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association announced on Tuesday that executive director Carrie Obry has stepped down from her position. Effective immediately, Grace Hagen will serve as MIBA’s interim executive director while the search for a permanent executive director takes place. In a release, the board stated, “during this period, Hagen will work closely with the board and senior leadership to ensure continuity in all organizational operations, while advancing the priorities and goals of MIBA.”
Hagen, who previously worked as director of operations and inclusion at the Novel Neighbor in Webster Groves, Mo., a St. Louis suburb, has worked for MIBA since May as its operations manager. MIBA’s other employee, Cori Theroux, who owns Green Dragon Bookstore in Ft. Dodge, Iowa, has served since October as bookstore membership manager.
Obry, who at the time was an acquisitions editor at Llewellyn Worldwide in St. Paul, Minn., was hired as MIBA’s executive director in October 2010, after longtime executive director Susan Walker announced she was moving to North Carolina to care for her elderly parents. Obry assumed her responsibilities at MIBA in late December of that year. Membership levels have ebbed and flowed during Obry’s tenure, from 205 bookseller members when she was hired in 2010 to 331 currently; there’s been a 40% spike in membership since 2022.
Obry, along with Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association's previous executive director, Deb Leonard, oversaw the inaugural Heartland Fall Forum in October 2012, which drew 400 booksellers and was deemed a great success; the joint trade show has taken place every year since, except during two pandemic years, 2020 and 2021. The show switches every year between the MIBA and GLIBA regions, and this October it was held in Obry’s hometown, Milwaukee; it received mixed reviews from several publishers’ reps that PW spoke to during it. Next year, HFF will take place in Indianapolis, Oct. 12–16.
MIBA's nine-member board, which consists of seven booksellers and two publishers' reps, disclosed that it intends to start the search process for a new executive director “in the coming weeks." The board is looking, it said, for "a candidate who is passionate about fostering a vital and supportive bookselling community, advocating for the essential value of independent bookstores, and possesses the skills and vision necessary to lead MIBA into its next chapter.”
In an email to PW, board president Kristen Sandstrom, the manager of Apostle Islands Booksellers in Bayfield, Wis., wrote: "MIBA thanks Carrie Obry for her years of service. We wish Carrie the best of luck in her future endeavors. We are excited to have Grace Hagen step into the temporary role of interim executive director while a full executive director search is undertaken.”
MIBA, founded in 1981 as the Upper Midwest Booksellers Association, represents indie booksellers in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
