OUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BOROUGH OF KINGS
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Read all about it — online!
The annual Brooklyn Book
Festival will return this fall
for an all-virtual weeklong
lineup of readings, author
talks, and workshops for the
borough’s bookworms on Sept.
28. While COVID-19 will force
this year’s event to look much
different from the typical
crowds that gather in Downtown
Brooklyn, the organizers
have used the remote experience
to draw more than 150
authors from around the globe
to participate in the free festival’s
online 15th anniversary.
“This really expanded the
opportunity to bring in audiences
from different time
zones, as well as authors for
whom in the past might have
been very diffi cult to travel to
the festival,” said Liz Koch,
one of the fest’s co-producers.
“Literally this year everyone
can have a front row seat to
this festival because they’re
right at their laptop.”
This year’s events will
come via livestream, Zoom,
or pre-recorded with a diverse
set of writers and moderators
on the weekend of Oct 3.
Saturday will be focused
on children’s and young adult
literature, while Sunday will
host the festival’s main day,
with the weekend boasting a
star-studded roster of writers
COURIER L 28 IFE, AUGUST 14-20, 2020
— including Lee Child,
Salman Rushdie, Ngugi wa
Thiong’o Cathy Park Hong,
R.L. Stine, and many more.
Some programming will be
specifi cally focused on how the
coronavirus has affected writers
and the literary industry,
according to the organizers.
Brooklyn author Lynn
Nottage will receive the Best
of Brooklyn Award, the fi rst
playwright to do so.
Programming runs all day,
with four virtual events per
hour, featuring fi ction, poetry,
non-fi ction, comics and international
programming — and
festival attendees can watch
back any event they weren’t
able to catch live, according to
the festival hochos.
“One of the main complaints
we had gotten in the past is people
not seeing all the thing they
wanted to,” said co-producer
Carolyn Greer. “Now you can
see what you want and then go
back and see other things that
you couldn’t see at that time.”
In addition to the weekend
lineup, there will be virtual
partnering events throughout
the fi ve boroughs from Sept.
28 to Oct 5, with organizations
such as Brooklyn Academy
of Music, Brooklyn Public Library,
PEN America, and the
Center For Black Literature at
Medgar Evers College, among
others.
The book gurus plan to
launch an online version of
their popular Literary Marketplace
on Aug. 15 to highlight
and help booksellers and
publishers sell their work during
the coming months.
“We felt that we could do
this for the struggling industry
to promote them in conjunction
with the festival,”
said Koch.
Brooklyn Book Festival,
Sept. 28-Oct 5., www.brooklynbookfestival.
org. Free.
Readers
rejoice!
Brooklyn Book Fest returns
with an all-virtual lineup
LOCAL HERO: Brooklyn playwright Lynn Nottage will receive the Best of Brooklyn Award at the all-virtual
Brooklyn Book Festival. Associated Press / Bebeto Matthews
/www.brooklyn-bookfestival.org
/www.brooklyn-bookfestival.org
/www.brooklyn-bookfestival.org
