Editor's Note: Shop Local; Read Local

On the author side, we can lay claim to quite a few writers who regularly reside on the bestseller lists, including Jennifer Weiner and Lisa Scottoline, but it's the breadth and depth that exists around those brand names that astounds. Recently, I had the good fortune to sit around a table with a number of these impressive local literary lights. The table in question was in our conference room here at NAPCO, at a luncheon we hosted to celebrate the local writing and publishing community. Over sandwiches and conversation about self-publishing, the huge number of new books being published, ebooks, publicity and community building, writers, some publishers, and even one literary agent shared experiences and ideas in a lively and long conversation.

It's these conversations that invigorate us and stimulate the kind of new ideas that lead to new books and new types of publishing companies (such as The Head & The Hand Press, a local "craft" publishing company that, in addition to traditional publishing functions, provides a collaborative workspace for writers and a membership program). We're hoping you're having these same conversations wherever you are, and that you are, like us, building a local identity of which you can be proud!