FIRST BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL TO CELEBRATE BOROUGH’S LITERARY LEGACY AND CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

6 P.M.
THURSDAY, MAY 4
BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL ROTUNDA
209 JORALEMON STREET
BETWEEN COURT & ADAMS STREETS
DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN

On Thursday, May 4, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz will announce that the first-ever Brooklyn Book Festival will take place Saturday, September 16, at Borough Hall, to celebrate the borough’s growing reputation as a hip, multiethnic literary enclave, and to attract new audiences to Brooklyn’s historic and contemporary literary culture.

The festival will feature three outdoor stages in Borough Hall Plaza as well as “Reading Rooms” inside historic Borough Hall, with appearances by authors including Colson Whitehead, Jhumpa Lahiri, Philip Lopate, Willie Perdomo, Eileen Myles, Rick Moody, Philip Levine, Nelson George, Jennifer Egan, Edmund White, Gary Shteyngart, Sekou Sundiata, Jonathan Ames, Myla Goldberg, Touré, Nelly Rosario, Carl Hancock Rux, Paula Fox, Kevin Powell, Steve Hindy, and Asha Bandele. More participants will be confirmed. Programming will also include music, a kids stage, and more than 100 exhibitors, including bookstores, publishers, literary organizations, and more.

The festival’s motto is “Smart, hip, and diverse,” and its honorary committee reads like a who’s who of contemporary authors and literary minds: Maurice Sendak, Spike Lee, Paul Auster, Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Safran-Foer, Dave Eggers, Russell Simmons, Howard Zinn, Siri Hustvedt, Kyle Baker, and Rosie Perez. The Festival Gala, an evening launch party under the stars Friday, September 15, at Brooklyn Bridge Park, will add to the event’s buzz.

A set of collectible “Brooklyn Bookmarks” will be available soon at Brooklyn Public Library branches, participating bookstores, and branches of Washington Mutual, a festival sponsor. The bookmarks will profile Brooklyn literary icons past and present and build festival awareness.  
 
The Young Authors programming is made possible by a grant from Independence Community Bank Foundation. Brooklyn Public Library and the Brooklyn Academy of Music are both partners in the Brooklyn Book Festival, which is presented by Brooklyn Tourism, an initiative of Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Time Out New York is the event’s media sponsor.