Guest Bloggers: Linda Rosen and Rachel Slaiman
The Brooklyn Book Festival pays homage to independent and literary presses across the nation as well as independent book stores and organizations such as WNBA, National Reading Group Month and The Authors Guild. With each booth having its own unique style and giveaways (and some delicious chocolate), it is hard to choose which ones to visit and to remember which ones you have.
As we walked the aisles on a warm Sunday hoping the rain would hold off (and it did!), we were drawn to various tables. Rachel Slaiman signed up for the Wall Street Journal’s book club and spent time perusing books at The Strand’s booth and literary magazines at The Paris Review and One Story while Linda Rosen visited publishers whose books made the coveted Great Group Reads 2014 list. Soho Press and Harper Perennial were both thrilled when toldForeign Gods, Inc. by Okey Ndibe and The Orphans of Race Point by Patry Francis were chosen as selections for the list. Publishers from Open Road Media visited the WNBA/NRGM booth and were equally excited when they saw a copy of their novel, Marching to Zion: A Novel by Mary Glickman, presented as a GGR 2014 winner.
In addition to the booths, programs and readings were held in venues around the neighborhood, in college auditoriums and churches, Borough Hall and Brooklyn Law School, and on Cadman Plaza itself. Roxane Gay, another GGR 2014 winner with her novel, An Untamed State, was a panelist at one of the neighborhood venues. If the line wasn’t so long to get in, Linda would have attended that discussion on “how feminism is a divided community.” Instead, Linda was at our booth along with other member volunteers and Pace interns, chatting with children’s authors, literary agents, historians, academics and self-published writers, to name a few, plus people who simply love a good book. Women and men alike were drawn to the WNBA/NRGM booth and we hope to see many new members at our upcoming events.
The Brooklyn Book Festival has something for everyone, in all genres, even a children’s section with writers dressed up as squirrels promoting their latest book. Between the information you gather and the goodies you take home, this annual event is definitely well worth the year long wait.
