Last Friday, for the second year in a row, the exhibit hall at the Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association trade show in Denver opened from 5-7 p.m. for a preview/cocktail hour combo platter. There were snacks and a cash bar; there were casual conversations among friends and networking opportunities for exhibitors and booksellers.
It's a great idea. "Adding in some alcoholic beverages and food really helps," said MPIBA's executive director Lisa Knudsen, who was supervising her final show before retirement. "I'm just a great believer in people eating and drinking together."
And then, quite suddenly, there was a cake.
Before--and after--the cake, however, the conversations at this show were all about the business of books. I talked to many booksellers in Denver, and left impressed by their generally positive outlook about the current state of the book trade. Business is, well, not bad, which is a quantum leap from where we were just a couple of years ago.
One of the buzz themes at the MPIBA show turned out to be independent publishing. An early panel--"Independent Publishers & Independent Booksellers, Can We Talk?"--created some serious heat that carried over into conversations I subsequently had with booksellers, authors and publishers--independent as well as traditional. There were some questions raised here that are being asked worldwide and probably won't yield clear answers any time soon--What is a publisher? What is a book? Can we talk about all that?
Absolutely.
On the final day of the show, I moderated a panel during MPIBA's first-ever Writers & the Independent Marketplace conference, which was held in tandem with the bookseller show. That discussion convinced me we can talk... and will... soon. I'll be revisiting those Denver conversations later this month.
As often happens at these shows, visiting authors took the time to thank indies for their support. At the regional awards breakfast, adult fiction winner C.J. Box (for Below Zero) said that when his first book came out, he was sent on a one-city tour to L.A., where his escort offered some advice that he's followed through 11 subsequent titles: Books are sold one at a time from a bookseller recommending them to a reader. "I know how that works," Box told the assembled booksellers. "It comes from you saying to a potential reader, 'You might like this.' "
During the author luncheon on Saturday, Karl Marlantes, author of Matterhorn, also expressed his gratitude, saying, "You're in the right business," and offering special thanks to Colorado booksellers Maria's Bookshop, Durango, and Tattered Cover Book Store, Denver, as well as Rainy Day Books, Fairway, Kan., for their early handselling passion for his novel. 
There were many other highlights at this year's show that will be noted in coming weeks, but the primary emotional undercurrent here was a bittersweet awareness that this would be the final MPIBA event for Lisa, whose well-earned retirement comes after more than 22 years as executive director and 30 years total in the book business.
In her letter to members last month announcing her intentions, Lisa wrote she was "looking forward to spending lots more time in my sadly neglected garden, to re-acquainting myself with the contents of my bookshelves, and especially to volunteering in the schools helping children learn to read."
On Friday night at the exhibit hall cocktail hour, we were called together near a podium and MPIBA president Meghan Goel of BookPeople, Austin, Tex., started things off by acknowledging sadness regarding Lisa's departure, but also noting this night was "really a celebration" for someone who has been "the real backbone of what we've done."
Three subsequent speakers offered personal, heartfelt, sometimes tearful recollections. "I was a board member when Lisa was hired in 1987. She was the perfect choice," said Nancy Rutland, as of today the former owner of Bookworks, Albuquerque, N.M. (Shelf Awareness, September 27, 2010).
"What Lisa does, has done and will always do is she connects us," Gayle Shanks of Changing Hands, Tempe, Ariz., observed. "I have made some of my very best friends through Nancy and this association. What Lisa has enabled us to do is become friends as well as colleagues."
"A few minutes ago I was saying, 'Where's Lisa?' " said Tattered Cover's Cathy Langer, "and I realized that's been the mantra for 22 years."
FInally, Lisa came to the podium and the crowd erupted with applause. "For 22½ years, MPIBA has been my home, and in addition to my daughter, it has been my family. I have a real clear conscience because all of us have been doing the good work," she said before concluding: "When you're a bookseller, you're a bookseller for life."
There were more tears and then, at last, there was that cake. 
Earlier this week, Lisa reflected that she'd been, as you might expect, particularly moved by the celebration on Friday: "It was just huge for me. It was one of the loveliest times of my life. To have women who are goddesses speak that way; to have the opportunity to know these women and that they have thought enough of me to say such great things about me was wonderful. They are friends for life.... And now I can just toddle off into my sunlit gardens."--Robert Gray (column archives available at Fresh Eyes Now)
Note: Photos courtesy of Drew Goodman, University Campus Store at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City.