Quantcast

Brooklyn Book Festival returns with hybrid event starting September 26

brooklyn-book-festival-2019-downtown-brooklyn-sdevries-12
The Brooklyn Book Festival in 2019.
Photo by Susan de Vries

After going fully virtual for their 2020 edition, the Brooklyn Book Festival returns this year with a hybrid affair mixing live and digital events.

Over 140 authors will participate in the festival this year, which begins on Sept. 26 with a series of “Bookend” events, both in-person spread out at different venues across the city as well as virtual.

These include Family Antiracist Storytime at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum on September 30, which “promotes and models age-appropriate anti-racist practices for families and young children,” and the annual dawn reading with the Gowanus Dredgers Canoe Club, who will be reading the work of Audre Lorde on September 29.

“We are very excited to welcome everyone back to enjoy our unique and fun in-person programs and literary marketplaces at the free, outdoors Children’s Day and Festival Day in Downtown Brooklyn, and to Bookends special literary events across the city,” the festivals co-directors Liz Koch and Carolyn Greer said in a statement.

The main festival day on Oct. 3 will present the usual fare—a robust book market, readings on multiple stages outside Borough Hall—with a twist: in the evening, when the in-person festival begins to wind down, events will continue virtually. Authors such as Paul Auster, Alison Bechdel, Jonathan Lethem, Rachel Kushner, Hanif Abdurraqib and Viet Thanh Nguyen are just a few of the names who will be participating.

Children’s Day on Oct. 2 will be an entirely in-person event in Brooklyn Commons Park at MetroTech. Readings, workshops and interactive activities will be available with children’s book authors such as David Levithan, Mahogany Browne, Sophie Blackall and Sayantani DasGupta.

Admission to all events at the 16th edition of the Brooklyn Book Festival is free. For more information on specific events, or to view the full list of participating authors, click here.

This story first appeared on our sister publication Brownstoner.