Last update: June 30, 2006 – 4:30 PM Sarah T. Williams, Star Tribune
New BookExpo show manager is Minnesota's Lance Fensterman
After being tossed around by the vicissitudes of independent book selling, Minnesota's Lance Fensterman has landed on his feet as show manager of BookExpo America.
Lance Fensterman, 30, an Apple Valley native, had been running two small businesses in Ohio when he got word that his best friend from high school had committed suicide in Minnesota. It was a blow that caused him to reassess and reprioritize -- one of those "life-check experiences," Fensterman said.
"It made me think, Do I want to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week for these small businesses? Or do I want to have a more balanced life?"
Fensterman sold his businesses and started work as general manager of Bound To Be Read, a job that brought him closer to home and family.
But that didn't last long.
When the St. Paul store closed in 2001 after four years of operation, Fensterman moved with his bride, Mindy Breva, to New Canaan, Conn., to manage Elm Street Books.
Before long, he found himself in the middle of a complicated and difficult merger attempt that forced the closing -- at least temporarily -- of Elm Street Books. Fensterman stayed on to help the store get back on its feet, then decided it was again time to put out his feelers.
This time he landed on the biggest of all book stages -- as show manager of BookExpo America, the country's largest annual gathering of publishers, buyers, sellers and authors.
He was there this spring, greeting the tens of thousands of conferees as they streamed into the Washington (D.C.) Convention Center for BookExpo 2006.
"Where's the bathroom?" someone asked. He graciously pointed the way, and then checked his watch. "Pardon me," he said, "I have to go get Mrs. [Mary] Cheney." (The vice president's daughter was promoting her book, "Now It's My Turn.")
Fensterman, now based in Norwalk, Conn., has big plans for the show's future, including staging more off-season events, offering more educational programming for librarians and luring a larger contingent of Asian booksellers and buyers. Fensterman said he's heading for Beijing this summer to negotiate with the U.S. Embassy and Chinese book buyers and publishers.
The new job is a perfect "confluence of art and commerce," he said. " I love to be creative, to make money -- in the good sense -- while doing something that's good for people."
On the Web: To download podcasts of events from BookExpo 2006, go to http://www.bookexpocast.com/.
Saturday, July 01, 2006
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3 comments:
That Lance is quite the superstar, but I actually wanted to learn more about the mysterious Bride- Mindy Breva. She seems like the more interesting one. Leave it the MSM to miss the best part of the story.
Yeah, that Melinda is the woman-behind-the-man that finds his keys when he can't remember where he left them. You'd think a woman journalist would recognize who makes the man!
What a team, eh? (I just returned from Canada) . . .
It's awfully strange to be referred to as Bride Mindy Breva, as I don't identify with that word at all! But, given my quiet nonprofit existence, it's probably the only media mention I'll ever get, unless I kill someone that is! Of bigger note were the glaring innaccuracies about when BTBR closed (2005) as well as a pretty big misquote at the end of the article. Oh well, it was a compliment for her to do the article at all so who can complain....
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