On Sunday, September 16, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the Borough President’s Literary Council and Brooklyn Tourism hosted the second annual Brooklyn Book Festival, fast becoming a major literary destination with renowned national and international authors joining the borough’s many homegrown writers, both well-established and new to the scene.
 
The 2007 festival was a daylong, free event at Brooklyn Borough Hall and Plaza, featuring readings and panels on multiple indoor and outdoor stages, a Target Children’s Area, an Independence Community Foundation Young Writers Pavilion, and more than 100 exhibitors, including bookstores, publishers, and literary organizations. The festival expanded this year, adding the beautiful Brooklyn Historical Society and St. Francis College as new venues.

As part of the day’s events, the Brooklyn Public Library kicked off its borough-wide “Big Read” featuring Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.

Authors scheduled for the festival included A.M. Homes, Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers, Mary Gaitskill, Jonathan Safran Foer, Gloria Naylor, Chuck Klosterman, Jonathan Lethem, George Packer, Jon Scieszka, Gail Carson Levine, Francine Prose, Mo Willems, Reverend Run, Uzodinma Iweala, Pete Hamill, Melissa Marr, Colson Whitehead, David Bouley, Kimiko Hahn, Charles Hynes and many more.

The festival also featured new writers, interviews, works in progress, children’s authors, Define-a-Thon, top chefs, civil liberties discussion, On the Road 50th anniversary, Brooklyn history, graphic novels, Sekou Sundiata tribute, investigative reporting, African literary renaissance, fiction, fantasy, comics and beyond.

“This year’s Book Festival proved once again that Brooklyn is a literary epicenter of New York City and America,” said Borough President Markowitz. “With our marquee authors from Brooklyn and now around the world, this year’s event put our unrivaled diversity of voices on display, and made reading and writing as hip as being a Brooklynite. When it comes to books, Brooklyn holds the title—period!”

Adds renowned Brooklyn bard Pete Hamill, a featured writer at this year’s event, “This is a marvelous festival, from the splendid variety of people and words on the plaza to the talks and readings within. It just vibrates with intelligence and a special kind of Brooklyn joy.”

On the eve of the festival, Saturday, September 15, Brooklyn literary legend Paul Auster was the guest of honor at the Book Festival Gala VIP event, followed by a free public screening of the 1995 film Smoke, for which Auster wrote the screenplay.