Transformative Brooklyn Book Festival concludes this weekend with celebratory Festival Day in Borough Hall Park

Weekend includes special Children’s Day, Saturday

SUNDAY IS FESTIVAL DAY, BRINGING DOZENS OF NOTABLE WRITERS FACE-TO-FACE WITH
READERS FOR LECTURES AND BOOK SIGNINGS

September 29, 2023 Special from the Brooklyn Book Festival

All images courtesy of Brooklyn Book Festival.

See slideshow of Brooklyn writers below

BOROUGH HALL PLAZA — The centerpiece Festival Day (Sunday, Oct. 1) takes place in the parks and plazas surrounding Downtown Brooklyn’s Borough Hall and other venues, with seven stages overflowing with conversation, as diverse authors of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, comics, graphic novels, and young adult literature come together to converse, read and sign books throughout the day. Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Hilton Als, Toluse Olorunnipa, Robert Samuels, and Colson Whitehead will all be on stage.

Hundreds of authors — from standout emerging voices to iconic writers whose bodies of works are literary movements unto themselves — convene for the event. As Brooklyn Book Festival often pairs young and debut writers with legends, Festival Day becomes an opportunity for audiences to think through some of today’s most urgent, and complex issues and also be uplifted and entertained with their favorite authors, and discover new favorites. Festival Day also stages the largest book market in the Northeast. This year the Brooklyn Book Festival’s vibrant Literary Marketplace will offer readers innumerable possibilities for encountering new work: with authors, publishers (many of them independent), and literary organizations setting up hundreds of tents around Borough Hall for attendees to visit and stroll through.

At Children’s Day (Saturday, Sept. 30), which takes place in Brooklyn Commons in MetroTech, families enjoy a full day of readings, workshops, performances, book signings, and art projects with favorite children’s and middle-grade authors and illustrators. It’s a playdate with authors as kids can get creative with their favorite writers and illustrators at workshops and even get their books signed. Plus, the whole family can find new favorite books at the Children’s Marketplace of Books.

Brooklyn Book Festival Co-Producer Liz Koch said, “This year’s authors come from as far away as Japan and Brazil and as nearby as down the street. Pulitzer Prize winners, emerging authors, fan favorites and debut authors will all be in Downtown Brooklyn and we are throwing out a big welcome mat for all of New York City to join our free celebration of authors and books.”

BoBi Award

The Best of Brooklyn (BoBi) award, presented each year to an author from Brooklyn and whose work best exemplifies or speaks to the spirit of Brooklyn, this year is conferred to “one of our most vital, vibrant cultural critics” (Bookforum), Pulitzer Prize-winner, New Yorker staff writer, and acclaimed author (The Women, White Girls, My Pinup) Hilton Als.

The BoBi winner will be celebrated in a special program on the Main Festival Day. Other past BoBi winners have included Esmerelda Santiago (2022), Toi Derricotte (2021), Lynn Nottage (2020), Mo Willems (2019), N.K. Jemisin (2018), Colson Whitehead (2017), Jacqueline Woodson (2016), Jonathan Lethem (2015), and others.

Hilton Als is a writer living in New York and California. He is the author of several books including The Women, White Girls — a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award and the winner of a Lambda Literary Award — and My Pinup. Als has received numerous accolades including a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, Yale University’s Windham-Campbell Literature Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

The full list of authors participating in Children’s Day, Festival Day and/or Virtual Festival Day, announced during yesterday evening’s virtual author reveal, includes:

About the Brooklyn Book Festival

The Brooklyn Book Festival was launched in 2006 to address the need for a major literary event that embraced the diverse constituencies of New York City. The Festival’s mission is to celebrate published literature and support the literary community through free and low-cost programs that connect New York City readers with local, national, and international authors, publishers, and booksellers. To this end, the staff collaborates with the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council, co-chaired by Johnny Temple and Camille Rankine, to develop original programs that are hip, smart, diverse, and inclusive, including Festival Day & Literary Marketplace, citywide Bookend events, Virtual Festival Day and the BKBF Children’s Day.

BKBF is presented by the non-profit Brooklyn Book Festival, Inc. and the Brooklyn Book Festival Literary Council. The Festival is proud of its roster of supporters including the Academy of American Poets, Amazon Literary Partnership, Baillie Gifford, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Brookfield Properties, the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Antonio Reynoso, CityPoint, Con Edison, Downtown Brooklyn Partnership, Hawthornden Foundation, JP Morgan Chase, the Kirby Family Foundation, Japan Foundation, the Mayor’s Office of Media & Entertainment, the National Endowment for the Arts, National Grid, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and Council Member Lincoln Restler, the New York Review of Books, the New York State Council on the Arts, NYU, and TD Charitable Foundation.