Emerging Leaders Get Together for NYC Night Out

Book industry professionals packed Under the Volcano, a midtown Manhattan bar, for an Emerging Leaders Night Out.

Last night, about 100 book industry professionals packed Under the Volcano, a midtown Manhattan bar, for an Emerging Leaders Night Out (ELNO) networking event. Organized by Steve Colca, marketing coordinator at W.W. Norton; Amanda Lydon, manager of Good Yarns Bookstore in Hastings-on-Hudson; and Jessica Stockton, events coordinator at New York City's McNally Robinson Booksellers, it was the third quarterly event hosted by Emerging Leaders - NYC and was timed to coincide with the Small Press Book Fair.

Jessica Stockton and Amanda Lydon

"[ELNO] gives us a chance to get together, in a casual way, with people in the book industry who we don't often get the chance to see," said Colca. "It also allows us to build bonds that will become useful later in our careers."

The Emerging Leaders - NYC events, which have been held at informal venues, and tied to New York literary fairs, are organized to "create an informal networking opportunity for young people in the book industry to trade ideas, information, and gossip, and come up with new partnerships," Stockton said on the Emerging Leaders - NYC blog.

Steve Colca and Ashley Tucker.

For Penguin Junior Designer Ashley Tucker, the crowded bar (named for Malcolm Lowry's novel), where booksellers and staff from a number of New York publishing houses socialized for several hours, provided a way to get to know more people in the industry she joined in June. "I've been able to meet a lot of people," she said. "Publishing is a close-knit community."

Stacy Leigh, director of PEN American Center's Open Book Program, came to talk with booksellers and publishers to promote diversity in literature, to discuss and stress that independent publishers "not be driven by the marketplace, but by literature and creativity," she said. "We're concerned about keeping the big discussions alive."

A part-time bookseller at McNally Robinson, Tom Roberge had previously attended the Brooklyn ELNO. He told BTW that he appreciated the networking opportunities, but noted the imbalance in the representation of members of the publishing and bookselling communities at last night's event. "There are not enough booksellers here," he said, adding that he was hoping for more bookseller-focused events in the future.

Organizers acknowledged the disproportion. "We're trying to balance the ratio of publishers to booksellers so it's 50/50," said Colca. "Right now we're at about 85/15." Stockton mentioned that current planning for the spring ELNO included possibly holding a specific bookseller-focused event instead of, or in addition to, the typical ELNO.

But most at the event were just happy to have the chance to talk with and meet others in the book industry more than once a year at BookExpo America. "I've been getting a lot of e-mails that say, 'Thank you so much for organizing this,'" said Colca. "People have been saying it's really rad." He added that the group has "grown very organically" via e-mail and word of mouth.

Noting that ELNO events have tripled in attendance, Stockton said, "We're reaching a critical mass. More people are aware of us and hearing about us. I walked to the other end of the bar, and was disappointed for a moment that I didn't know anyone. But then I realized, that's a good thing, we're getting lots of new people." --Karen Schechner