Charm City is living up to its name for the 318 booksellers who descended upon Baltimore over the weekend to attend New Voices New Rooms (NVNR), the joint trade show of the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association and the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance.

The show first began as a virtual collaboration during the pandemic; this year marks the fourth year that booksellers from the two organizations have mixed and mingled in person during the last days of summer. It is also outgoing NAIBA executive director Eileen Dengler's last trade show and incoming NAIBA executive director Liz Hottel's first regional.

This year there are 219 booksellers from NAIBA and 137 booksellers from SIBA attending NVNR. (Some booksellers are members of both organizations.)

After a day of bookstore tours, followed by a first-timer orientation to NVNR and an author reception that included a literary trivia competition Sunday evening, NVNR got going on Monday morning with a keynote presentation, “We Will Not Be Silenced: Black Women Shaping Our Narrative, featuring two nonfiction authors—Soyica Diggs Colbert (Freedom’s Gate, Norton, Oct. ) and Celeste Headlee (Freedom’s Daughters, Flatiron, Oct.)—and two novelists—Afia Atakora (Strivers, Random House, Feb. 2027), and Nicole Dennis-Benn (Black Gold, Random House, Jan. 2027). NAIBA president Hannah Oliver Depp, the owner of the Loyalty Bookstores in the Washington, D.C. metro area served as moderator.

The promise of freedom is a common theme in all four of the books, Depp pointed out in introducing the panel, as each of the authors explore how Black women have pursued that promise and achieved success, despite the obstacles presented by a racist society and betrayals of their efforts, oftentimes by Black men.

Headlee emphasized how, during the post Civil War Reconstruction era, it was Black women who emphasized literacy and took the lead in creating institutions that benefited Black people while building community, like hospitals, churches, and schools.

“The Black literary tradition in America is a Black women literary tradition,” she said, “Education is very much Black.” Atakora noted that Black women used their power to benefit both themselves as well as their descendants.

Dennis-Benn noted that while she is not a historian, there is much truth in her writing about the Jamaican woman’s experience, versus the myths shrouding that reality. Toni Morrison’s novels, especially Song of Solomon, Dennis-Benn said, “gave me that license of taking difficult subjects and turning that into fiction.”

Reflecting upon the complicated lives of the luminaries she wrote about, Colbert said that “going into the archives and seeing how these women survived catastrophe was a lesson in living.”

Afterwards, Bunnie Hilliard, the owner of Brave + Kind Books in Decatur, Ga., said that she “could not stop smiling” during the discussion, which she called “a lesson in Black history, Black excellence, and Black joy.”

Julia Davis, SIBA board president and owner of the Book Worm in Powder Springs, Ga., said that such a keynote “was a great way to kick off the day, to kick off the show. It was the right way to set the tone for energy, expectation, and what the attendees have to look forward to.”

And Milo Garrin of People’s Book in Takoma Park, Md., said that he “went in, knowing nothing, and came out with all four of the books—and I usually don’t read nonfiction.”

NVNR's schedule on Monday emphasized education, with panel sessions in three tracks: community; events/marketing/promotions; and profitability, including a session led by Emily Nason, education director of the American Booksellers Association, who led booksellers through establishing a budget that will "keep your store, open, healthy, and thriving." A realistic budget can act as "a guide to achieving store goals," she noted, and takes into account historical revenues and expenses as well as forecasted revenues and expenses based on seasonal trends and changes in the community, as well as other factors.

Informed budgeting, she added, "is about building the bookstore you want to run, not the one you happen to have."

The exhibit hall will be open today. NVNR continues through Wednesday morning.