Alta Journal spent several days at a Portland, Oregon, Holiday Inn scenically situated on the banks of the Columbia River as we attended our first Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Fall Tradeshow. The annual event has been in existence since the 1980s and serves as an opportunity for independent booksellers in the region to convene with publishers, exhibitors, and one another to exchange ideas, anticipate new book releases, and promote their stores. As you might know, we are very much in love with indie bookstores.
Like the American Booksellers Association’s Winter Institute, the show features a series of educational sessions, author signings, and networking opportunities. This event, however, is invested in providing more regionally specific resources to booksellers and adapting to the changing needs of the organization’s 157 members in and around the Pacific Northwest.
“It’s an opportunity for us to observe and talk to all of these booksellers so that we can learn new things and keep doing this, keep turning things over so that we’re in continual evolution,” said Brian Juenemann, the PNBA’s executive director and marketing director. “This means tons of ideas and tons of work to come, but it’s what keeps us healthy and ahead of the curve as an organization.”
Alta’s bookstore partnerships coordinator, Eliza Gislason, spent much of the show in the exhibit hall, spreading the word about Alta and connecting with new and existing bookstore partners to discuss some of the ways we can support their businesses.
Favorite conversations with Pacific Northwest booksellers included ones about Alta’s coverage of the region, such as Ruby McConnell’s heartbreaking serial about the Applegate Trail, Julian Smith’s murder mystery at Crater Lake, and, of course, David Wolman’s wild telling of Portland citizens’ dangerous attempts to repossess stolen cars.
As of this week, Alta has added several Pacific Northwest bookstores to its distribution list, including White Oak Books in Vancouver, Washington, and Spoke & Word Books in Milwaukie, Oregon, both of which are new bookstores set to open this fall. It’s a trend Juenemann has been observing with great excitement post-pandemic. “There’s this incredible recovery energy mixed with this new, fresh energy, and you can feel it in every aspect of the show right now,” he said.
Stay tuned next week—Alta will be in San Francisco for the California Independent Booksellers Alliance Fall Fest. And don’t miss our list of independent booksellers throughout the country currently carrying Alta.•
