Tuesday's Opening Breakfast Keynote, Reading Is Power: How Storytelling and Imagination Can Liberate Us and Shape a Better World, features LeVar Burton, ABA's Indie Bookstore Ambassador, who will be in conversation with Janet Webster Jones, founder of Source Booksellers, Detroit, Mich.
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| LeVar Burton | |
LeVar Burton is an iconic actor best known for his roles in Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation, and Reading Rainbow. He is also a director, producer, podcaster, and author of The Rhino Who Swallowed a Storm, Aftermath, and A Kids Book About Imagination. Burton has received seven NAACP Awards, a Peabody Award, a Grammy, and 15 Emmys. His longtime literacy advocacy has encouraged innumerable children to expand their imaginations and language skills. Burton's first documentary, The Right to Read (2023), frames America's literacy crisis as a civil rights issue. His podcast is called LeVar Burton Reads.
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| Janet Webster Jones | |
Janet Webster Jones is the founder of Source Booksellers in Detroit, Mich. She entered the bookselling business in 1989 and opened her first bricks-and-mortar store inside the Spiral Collective, a shared space with three other woman-owned, African American businesses in Detroit's Midtown area in 2002. In 2013, the bookstore moved across the street to its current location. In 2022, she served on the nonfiction panel for the National Book Awards. She is a retired educator from the Detroit Public Schools, where she spent a 40-year career. In 2023, the Great Lakes Independent Booksellers Association and the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association honored Jones with the Voice of the Heartland Award, which recognizes individuals and organizations who "uphold the value of independent bookselling and have made a significant contribution to bookselling in the Midwest." Last year, Source Booksellers was named PW's Bookstore of the Year.
Also on Tuesday are panels and seminars on a variety of subjects including sustainable author events; Ingram sharing advice on how new booksellers can grow sales; building a Spanish-language section for the whole community; empowering BIPOC booksellers in white-dominated spaces; de-escalation essentials for booksellers; physical and event security; and more. There's also the Editors Buzz Lunch, rep picks speed dating sessions, a romance evening event as well as the Authors Equity Puzzle Mania! Games Night with New York Times games editor Joel Fagliano.