Dear Booksellers,

There are seven inches of snow blanketing the world outside my office window. It’s quiet on our street except for the children laughing and throwing snowballs. Tonight, I’ll make my grandmother’s sugar ‘n spice pecans for our neighbors and then watch Elf with my step-daughter and husband, a family holiday tradition. It all seems so normal.

But the kids have a “snow day” from school even though their classes are on Zoom. I’ll wear a mask to drop off the nuts to neighbors who I barely know since we moved in during the pandemic. And my family will watch the movie together via FaceTime and well synched streaming, very socially distanced, Brigitte on the West Coast and Jeff and I on the East Coast.

Nothing is really “normal,” but it is our life at the moment, one that by any standard is still wonderful.  

I know this holiday season is far from normal for all of you. Watching the season unfold on social media I’ve seen your online order fulfillment work stations, your overflowing curbside pickup shelves, the masks and social distancing. A holiday season that is far from normal, but one that I imagine has been filled with moments of pride in the ways that you’ve all adapted and innovated, grace in the kindness of customers who’ve rallied to support you, and satisfaction for you and your booksellers in a fight well fought.

Though I know there have been moments that it must feel like you’re losing that fight, if you’re still in it, you haven’t lost. And the fact that you’re still in it is a win for your customers and your communities, everyone whose lives your bookstores touch.

And so we begin 2021. Not with the old normal or even a new normal, but with perspective on what matters, with pride and grace and stamina, and with signs that there are opportunities that will emerge from the massive disruption that marked 2020:

Opportunities for the whole world in the medical advancements spurred by Covid research, in the antiracist work spurred by protests, in the environmental awareness inspired by lifestyle changes, and in the creative efforts birthed from new ways of looking at the world. (I mean, if Dopamine, the new supergroup with Black Thought, Elvis Costello, DJ Premier, T-Bone Burnett, Nathaniel Rateliff, and Cassandra Wilson, isn’t a good example I don’t know what is!) 

And opportunities for indie bookstores: We begin 2021 with new customers, new skills, new data, and a new perspective. A solid foundation from which to build the future.

All of us here at ABA are honored to move forward with you, and grateful for all that you do.

Good luck with the final stretch. Happy Holidays. And a very Happy New Year to everyone.

Allison