Honorary chairman Walter Dean Myers and his son will share auctioneer duties for BEA's Children's Art Auction. Live bidding will be opened for several rare items.

The American Booksellers Association is extending registration to May 11 for its one-day Children’s Institute, to be held on Wednesday June 6 at BEA.

Tilden Cummings Jr., author program coordinator at Chicago’s swanky Union League Club, calls bookseller Roberta Rubin a “rock star in the publishing world,” but writer Rochelle Distelheim’s words are more apt. In response to the news that the 75-year-old Book Stall at Chestnut Court has been named PW’s Bookstore of the Year, Distelheim wrote on Facebook that Rubin is “godmother to Chicago’s literary population.” Indeed, Rubin, effervescent and spry at 74, seems almost like a fairy godmother on a spring afternoon, as visitors crowd into the 600-sq.-ft. back office behind the 4,400-sq.-ft. sales floor, waiting for her to grant their wishes.

In an industry in transition it seems fitting that PW make a change of its own and for the first time in the 20-year history of the awards allow two sales representatives to share the honor. Ann Kingman started working at Dell in 1986 on the day after Bertelsmann purchased the company—and was told not to expect her job to last more than six months. Michael Kindness, who was recently named this year’s Random House Field Sales Rep of the Year, joined the company 12 years ago after buying books for Waterstone’s in Boston, Mass., and managing Wellesley Booksmith in Wellesley, Mass. They share the New England territory for part of the Random House adult list, and they’re the voice and creativity behind the Books on the Nightstand podcasts and blog, which can be found in the iTunes store and at booksonthenightstand.com. They also know every frontline bookseller in their territory, and what they like to read.

PW's guide to the must-get galleys at BookExpo America 2012 includes new books from James Patterson, Dan Rather, Dennis Lehane, and Lee Child, plus a slew of hot debuts.

Two weeks after BEA ended last year and all the booksellers left town, something magical happened in New York: 10 more blocks of the High Line, our beloved “park in the sky,” finally opened to the public, doubling it in size.

To those of you who will be attending the BEA in June, know that you will be standing on hallowed ground. Not because of the rich mineral content of the soil, or because of the area’s dollar value per square foot. No, you are trodding the path of ghostly royalty for one simple reason: right here, in the area surrounding the Jacob Javits Convention Center, enough storied history has unfolded to fill a New York City version of Edward Gibbon’s multi-volume The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

In response to reader requests, we offer a master list of exhibitors, in numerical order. You will also find here the companies as they are grouped in the Digital Zone, Meeting Rooms, and the Rights Center.

Our A-Z guide to BEA exhibitors, the definitive resource to planning your show.

“We finally dug ourselves out of the recession,” says Toby Cox, owner of the 44-year-old Three Lives & Company, giving voice to a sentiment expressed by a number of New York City booksellers. He ranks 2011 as one of the store’s best since he purchased it 11 years ago.