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| Ocean Vuong | |
Monday's Opening Breakfast Keynote features Ocean Vuong, who will speak on the subject of Alternative Truths: the bookstore and library as sites of counter knowledge, play, inquiry, and freedom. Vuong is the author of the poetry collections Night Sky with Exit Wounds and Time Is a Mother, as well as the novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of a MacArthur "Genius Grant," the Whiting Award, and the T.S. Eliot Prize, Vuong has also worked as a line cook, tobacco harvester, nursing home volunteer, and fast food server, the latter becoming inspiration for The Emperor of Gladness, which Penguin Press will publish in May.
Also on Monday are panels and seminars on a variety of subjects including boosting romance and pre-order sales, optimizing inventory, bookstore diversification (adding other non-book businesses within stores), consumer trends. There's the Editors Buzz Lunch, a rep picks speed dating session, and a romance evening event.