Meet the SIBA Staff: Linda-Marie Barrett / Executive Director

Linda-Marie Barrett began her work for SIBA in 2014, volunteering as SIBA’s first Bookseller Liaison. She was the general manager at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe in Asheville, NC and her husband was a publisher rep for Ingram/PGW. Linda-Marie spent all her vacation time, as so many booksellers do, meeting other booksellers while accompanying her husband on his rep appointments. She brought questions from the SIBA Board, provided education on SIBA programming, and heard about bookseller challenges. Getting to know booksellers from across SIBA territory inspired her to serve on the SIBA Board from 2015-2017. In 2017, she officially joined SIBA staff as assistant executive director and in 2020 became the executive director. She’s honored to be part of a vibrant, caring organization committed to creating programming and opportunities for SIBA booksellers to connect, learn, and improve their businesses.

Linda-Marie loves to garden, hike, and bake, but loves writing most of all. She edited and contributed to the regional bestselling serial novel Naked Came the Leaf Peeper, and is a contributor to Spinning Toward the Sun: Essays on Writing, Resilience, and the Creative Life, an anthology benefiting the recovery of Asheville, NC, after Hurricane Helene. She is the author of Creating a Salon: The Magic of Conversations That Matter  (Agate Publishing, 2025). She’s always working on at least one writing project and coaching other writers to move their projects forward. Throughout her life, books have shaped who she is, how she moves in the world, and who she hopes to be. Writing, reading, and recommending books to others, particularly books that might change lives, are sacred acts.