Welcome to Heartland Summer!

To our valued partners,

Like everyone in the publishing industry, we've been having ongoing conversations about how to support the bookselling industry during the time of the coronavirus. We've been thrown a huge plot twist and we're all writing the next chapters together.

For everyone's safety, we've decided to postpone this year's Heartland Fall Forum until 2021. We're sticking with the same venue, so we'll be able to convene again October 20-22, 2021 at the Hyatt Regency St. Louis at the Arch.

Our annual celebration is always a major highlight of our year, and we are eager to see you all again under the banner of Great Lakes bookselling, where we can raise a glass, meet loads of authors, and learn from each other in person. Until then!

In the meantime, we're eager to bring the book industry more opportunities to connect, learn new ways of doing business, and discover books and authors. When we laid out everything Heartland offers, however, it became impossible to try to fit it all into one short span of time, so we're moving forward with a creative mix of extended programming.

Welcome to Heartland Summer!

During the months of June, July, August, and September, we will offer an ongoing array of events – education, rep picks and author events - all virtual and easy to attend and enjoy. It will be sustained by an exhibits page on our website that hosts our summer content while also allowing publishers and industry members to bring you the show specials, creative assets, ARC request forms, and the necessary forms of connection we usually provide.

In October, we will host a bigger virtual celebration, including a Heartland Booksellers Award celebration and the Heartland Book Club.

To accommodate all schedules every event will be recorded and made available to all members to view and enjoy at their convenience. 

We will announce our schedule very soon. In the meantime, if you have education topics or presenters you would like included in the programming please email Larry Law at larry@gliba.org. 

If you are a publisher or rep interested in participating in our monthly Rep Picks sessions please make sure you are added to our database of reps by emailing Larry Law at larry@gliba.org. Sign-up forms will be going out soon.

If you have authors you know you'd like to put on our radar, especially for keynote spots, please email Carrie Obry at carrie@midwestbooksellers.org.

The goal is to deliver key pre-pub opportunities that allow us to do business together at a time when we really need it, while also opening up the fall schedule to host a bigger celebration of bookselling in the Great Lakes region.

Thank you for your support and we'll be in touch very soon as we create the infrastructure to make our plans a reality.

---