Five authors of upcoming titles for children and teens spoke to a breakfast audience last week at NEIBA's 51st annual fall conference, held in Newton, Mass. Winsome Bingham, Christopher Denise, Gayle Forman, Adam Gidwitz, and Lamar Giles each talked about different aspects of their books and their inspiration, and discussed their experiences with independent bookstores. NECBA co-chairs Kinsey Foreman (High Five Books, Florence, Mass.) and Sara Waltuck (Brookline Booksmith, Brookline, Mass.) opened the breakfast with a high energy welcome that was matched by Steve Iwanski, founder of Charter Books in Newport, R.I., introducing Christopher Denise, author of Knight Owl and Early Bird (Hachette, October 15).
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| Chris Denise |
Denise, who had a presentation designed to give booksellers a look inside his creative process, began by saying, "I would be remiss if I did not thank all of you--the group of people I have been waiting to thank since April of 2022." He continued, "It is all of you I need to thank for the continued success of my first book. I am so thankful. As is my family--I have two girls in college." Denise then told the story of how "this little nugget came to life." Until the publication of Knight Owl in 2022, Denise had been an illustrator for other people's writing. "During the pandemic," he said, "everything seemed to slow down." Denise had been working on something that fell through and realized he had never successfully crafted his own story. "How hard could it be?," he thought. "It was hard." But Denise had spent years reading the manuscripts of authors he admired. When his manuscript was done, "it was overly long, self-indulgent, and had no arc." He pitched the story to his family, and it received "crickets." But then his daughter asked, "What if the owl was a knight?" Denise paused and looked at the audience. "I knew in that moment that she was not only brilliant, but my new favorite daughter." Considering "what was happening in the world," Denise felt as if no one was paying attention--this gave him a "hall pass" to make not the kind of book he thought he should make or the kind of book he thought he should be known for, but something he liked. "The book published, and it was only after all of you discovered it and handsold it and brought it to other bookstores that the other players in this industry started paying attention to it." When his editor asked him what he would like to do next, Denise's answer was immediate: "Retire?" Instead, he "waded into the waters of the dreaded sequel." It was important to him that his sequel be as good as the first: "If it stinks or it's not coming together or it's not up to the level of the first book, we're not doing it." And, amazingly, "Early Bird just came to life. It worked and she took form." Writing was a big learning curve, Denise said, but "my hope is that we made something worthy of your continued interest--an adventure worthy of the attention of our young readers."
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| Winsome Bingham |
Ernio Hernandez from River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury and West Hartford, Conn., introduced Winsome Bingham, who co-authored The Table with Wiley Blevins, illustrated by Jason Griffin (Neal Porter Books, September 17). Bingham spoke to the hard work of booksellers and the need she sees in children's literature. "The world has changed and it's time our stories and our books reflect that. Yes, we need books about pretty princesses. We need books with creatures that don't exist in our immediate world, but in a world all their own. You show up for the elves on the shelves year after year. You show up for the mermaids, the unicorns, the dragons, and of course, the Knight Owl. I'm asking you," Bingham said, "to show up for people and the things in our lives we take for granted. I'm asking you to show up for the poor because they get up every morning to go to work but still live below the poverty line. I'm asking you to show up for the two families in The Table." Bingham spoke about the creation of The Table, of a childhood in which she didn't know she was poor because she had "everything [she] needed," and how divided the world feels. "At the end of the day, we all have one thing in common: we want the best for each other, we want the best for our children, we want to be kind, we want to be giving. Our lives may look different but they're not--we're living the same life, they're just parallel. You, booksellers, are life changers. Selling parallel worlds for $30."
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| Gayle Forman |
Liz Whitelam, incoming NEIBA board president and owner of Whitelam Books in Reading, Mass., introduced Gayle Forman, who read the first chapter of After Life (Quill Tree Books, January 7, 2025) to the audience. "It's a metaphysical mystery," she said of the book, noting that she writes stories about death and dying, not because she's "particularly morbid, but because to me, the great hope of life is, although these moments are coming for us all, we survive them." The reason she wrote After Life, she said, was because of "the second most quoted line of any of my books," a line from the afterword of If I Stay. That book "was made with you all. You all went out and handsold this strange book--you took this book into your heart and you handsold the hell out of it and changed my life completely. I thank you, and my daughter, who is also at college, thanks you." Though Forman didn't read the line, she said this book came from the idea that "love does not die as long as you keep the stories of people alive in your heart."
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| Adam Gidwitz |
By the time Waltuck invited Adam Gidwitz (Max in the Land of Lies, Dutton, February 25, 2025) to take the stage, the allocated time for the breakfast was rapidly dwindling. Gidwitz, concerned about making time for both he and Giles to speak, told the story of Max in the House of Spies but purposefully kept it quick. The book came about from Gidwitz's desire to tell the story of family friend Michael Steinberg's early life in England after arriving on a Kindertransport in 1938 when he was 10 years old. To be honest, Gidwitz said, "Michael Steinberg scared the bejezus out of me when I was a kid." But, when Gidwitz was about 15 years old, The Phantom Tollbooth came up in conversation. Steinberg said he had never read it. "I took a risk and ran up to my room and grabbed it and gave it to him," Gidwitz said. Steinberg "went out into our yard, sat there for five hours, and read that book cover to cover. That holiday season, he sent a copy of The Phantom Tollbooth to all his friends. This remains the proudest moment of my life." When the pandemic hit, "we lived in a time that felt full of bewildering lies," Gidwitz said. "I didn't know what was true, and I started thinking about navigating a world where lies are the primary discourse. And I thought back to Nazi Germany." Michael, he realized, was his way into that story. "To be here is one of the great honors of my life, my year, so thank you all," Gidwitz finished.
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| Lamar Giles |
Lamar Giles, introduced by Kinsey, closed the breakfast, describing his book, Ruin Road (Scholastic Press, September 17), by saying that, in his mind, demons wouldn't be out signing bargains and taking souls--those willing to give their souls wouldn't have souls worth taking. Demons, he said, "would be more like infernal venture capitalists on a show like Shark Tank." Giles took that concept of demons and "threw everything [he's] ever been scared of into this book." Writing about being a parent was the hardest, he said. "I had been walking around fearless my whole adult life until my daughter was born. But now, I'm walking around scared of everything. Grapes are terrifying." Because of the audience of booksellers, though, Giles said that he, a man who grew up "in a community where [he] never saw a writer," can now bring his daughter into a store where she can see her name on the books. "Thank you for all you've done and all you will do," he finished. "And just know that when we're all done with this conference and you head home, don't get lost. There are some strange, strange roads out there."
Immediately following the breakfast was the annual NECBA meeting, led by co-chairs Foreman and Waltuck. Unlike previous years, they announced the 2024 Windows and Mirrors list and and then the attendees split into small groups where they could chat about the different winners. Booksellers shared information on the winning titles, discussed how to handsell the books, and gave each other recommendations on read-alikes for young readers. This excellent resource of diverse and inclusive children's titles can be found on NEIBA's website. --Siân Gaetano, children's and YA editor, Shelf Awareness
After debuting online in 2021, indie press and bookstore 50 Watts Books will open a bricks-and-mortar store in Philadelphia, Pa., next month. 
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