The Brooklyn Book Festival’s main goal is to promote literature. It also aims to develop a literary community through programs that cultivate and connect all readers of various ages and origins with local and international authors, publishers and sellers. For this, the event creates original trendy, smart, diverse and inclusive programs, as well as low-cost and free public events. Read more about it on brooklynski.info.
The biggest event
This event is the largest such free festival in New York, connecting readers with international and local publishers and writers during a festive week.
It presents an original program and welcomes all local book lovers, as well as participants from all over the world. The festival is known for promoting creative dialogue between authors. It presents new literary talents as well as well-known writers. It also serves the literary community as a transparent platform for publishers and authors.
It was organized in 2006 as a one-day event to fill the need for a free, large-scale literary event that spanned the diverse boroughs of New York. Now, it continues for eight days and holds various Bookends events, the main Festival Day with 300 authors and the Literary Marketplace with 250 independent and major publishers. There is also Children’s Day, which encourages kids to read. The credo of the festival is to be fashionable, smart and diverse. Therefore, it is a must-see for all bookworms.
The mission
It is the largest free such local event. Nowadays, it is better than ever with fun activities and a huge market to replenish your library.
This festival is a dream of every literature lover. The eight-day event includes face-to-face dialogues with the writers, hundreds of books from various vendors and several virtual readings. Since 2006, the organizers have always sought to create such a literary event that all locals would be happy to visit. This goal could not be achieved in one day, as was the case at the very beginning. Therefore, the festival expanded into a free celebration that lasts more than a week.
This period of bookworm paradise is filled with plenty of opportunities for virtual interaction and includes more than 50 literary events scattered throughout the borough. The main goal of the event is to be modern, smart and diverse. At the same time, many of the events are related to the themes of social justice and the role of artists in a changing world.
The role of art in society
The festival is appealing to different people. The week-long Bookend events are concerned with the role of art in developing society. During the festival, a wide range of topics are discussed, from the peculiarities of the ekphrastic, feminist adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining to a discussion about the ability of science fiction to inspire and implement social change.
One such event was the New York Waterfront Diary at the Invisible Dog Art Center panel. It is usually devoted to organic matter and is filled with wax images of coral and seagrass. For the last time, a highly respected group of artists gathered here to discuss Sophie Fenwick’s project. The participants discussed a collection of waterfront photos and poems that Fenwick has been collecting since the 1990s, which are also about the ever-changing and ever-present waterfront. The last time here, you could meet the photographer herself, as well as the curator Sean Corcoran, the writer Eddie Joyce, the historian Nicki Pombier and the poet Silvina Lopez Medin.
If you don’t have the opportunity to attend the Bookends events or you just want to replenish your collection, the Festival Day & Literary Marketplace is the perfect event for you. It usually revolves around Brooklyn Borough Hall, which hosts numerous events, such as artist panels and live readings. They take place in the heart of the marketplace with over 200 sellers.
Altogether, this festival will not disappoint you whether you come to discover the sociology of NYC at Bookends events or get lost in one of the Festival Days.