Event Genre: Non-Fiction

Call of Games presented by NYU

Video games offer a form of storytelling that has lured in countless authors, from playing obsessively in their childhood to incorporating video game influences in their books. Join novelist and co-editor of Critical Hits: Writers Playing Video Games J. Robert Lennon, novelist and editor Jeanne Thornton (A/S/L), and fiction and nonfiction author Ander Monson (Predator: […]

Ruler of the Ruins: Absolute Power and the Breaking of America

Join Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT journalist Maggie Haberman (Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump, co-authored by Jonathan Swan) and National Book Award-winning author George Packer (The Emergency) for a cross-genre conversation about unfettered executive power and institutional erosion in an age of polarization. Combining Packer’s allegorical lens of fictional societal collapse with Haberman’s […]

50 Years of Complete Techniques and The Taste of Country Cooking

In 1976, Jacques Pepin’s Complete Techniques detailed and democratized the foundations of French cooking for an American audience, and Edna Lewis’s The Taste of Country Cooking proclaimed the beauty and bounty of local, seasonal Southern food as one of the world’s great cuisines. Join Toni Tipton-Martin, culinary historian and author of a new foreword for […]

Hello Darknuss: Reflections on the Intergalactic Greg Tate (In Person)

For this special forum, Greg Tate’s esteemed friends and contemporaries Arthur Jafa, Questlove, dream hampton, and Jelani Cobb gather to discuss his life and work. Moderated by Daphne A. Brooks. Greg Ionman Tate was a cultural critic and journalist whose work continues to reverberate and inspire generations of writers, artists, and creatives. He authored the […]

How to Build A Fascist-Free Future: Lessons from the Past, Encouragement for the Present

Join National Book Award-winner Ibram X. Kendi (Chain of Ideas), movement leader Yotam Marom (For Louder Days), and journalist Osita Nwanevu (The Right of The People), in a wide-ranging discussion of our perilous national moment, what we can do to secure a brighter future, and how each of us plays a part in doing so. […]

250 Years in Search of a More Perfect Union, presented by The Nation

A conversation about what it will take to preserve our freedom, our democracy, and our future for the next 250 years—and what the last 250 have taught us about the work still unfinished. As the nation marks a quarter-millennium since its founding, this panel brings together historians, poets, journalists and policy experts to explore what […]

Nature from the Margins

From the fossil record to the edges of space, science passes through a sense of wonder about humanity and our place in the universe. Three exemplary science writers on what the study of the natural world has to say about the human one: Beronda L. Montgomery (When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black […]

The Anti-Equality Era

Join Ben Tarnoff (Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed, co-authored with Quinn Slobodian), historian Kim Phillips-Fein (Country of Lords: Neo-Aristocrats, Social Darwinists, Tech Utopians, and the Long Fight against Equality in America) and Amazon Labor Union cofounder Derrick Palmer (Handbook for the Revolution: Building a More Perfect Union for the Twenty-First Century) for a discussion […]

Secrets, Lies, and Memory

Every family has a vault, but what happens when we start digging through the contents? Join New Yorker staff writer Rachel Aviv (You Won’t Get Free of It: Stories of Mothers and Daughters), journalist Tom Junod (In the Days of My Youth I Was Told What It Means To Be a Man: A Memoir), and […]

Bold Paths to Reform, presented by Brooklyn Law School

When the status quo isn’t working, ambitious political and economic reforms are needed. Mechele Dickerson’s The Middle-Class New Deal looks back to the creation of the American middle class as a solution to the economic distress of the Great Depression, laying out a plan to rebuild our modern middle class and expand economic opportunity for […]

Reclaiming the Human Connection: Movement, Media, and Micro-Rituals

How do we break the modern cycle of digital exhaustion? Join Webby Award-winning host Manoush Zomorodi (Body Electric: The Hidden Health Costs of the New Digital Age and the New Science to Reclaim Your Well-Being), acclaimed media theorist Ian Bogost (The Small Stuff: How to Lead a More Gratifying Life) and master cultural chronicler Bruce […]

“Tastes of Memory”: An Evening of Readings (In Person)

What links food and memory? Can an herb, a spice, or a fruit be an archive of history? How does food divide us as well as unite us? Inspired by a phrase from Ligaya Mishan’s New York Times review of a Cambodian restaurant: “it turns out that people want this: good food, thoughtfully made, that […]

Other Things Unspoken: Celebrating the PEN Prison Writing Awards Anthology Series (In Person)

For over 50 years, PEN America’s PEN Prison Writing Awards have honored and amplified the work of writers incarcerated throughout the United States. Since 2018, award recipients have been published in an anthology series of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and drama. This event honors the writers published in the latest editions of the PEN Prison Writing […]

The Culinary Life: Crafting Narrative and Memoir Through Food

Food is life, and for culinary lives—where craft, relationships, and personal growth are rooted in the kitchen—the lens of food can sometimes be the clearest vantage point from which to look back. Join us to explore the ways food guides narrative in memoirs by chefs and writers Brigid Washington, author of Salt, Sweat & Steam […]

Branching Out: On the Future of Environmental Storytelling, presented by Orion Magazine

The genre of environmental writing has been expanding in recent years. Writers for Orion Magazine have pushed the boundaries of the genre by exploring the surprising intersections between nature writing and other forms, themes, and subjects. Nonfiction writers and Orion contributors Meera Subramanian (A Better World Is Possible: Global Youth Confront the Climate Crisis), Maria […]

When We Gather: On Food, Celebration, and Ritual

In times like these especially, the power of gathering over shared nourishment and experience ripens with political possibility in anthropologist Ashanté Reese’s Gather, joyful festivity in entertaining expert Amber Mayfield Hewett’s Your Turn to Host, and fulsome flavor in chef Natasha Pickowicz’s Everyone Hot Pot. Join us for a wide-ranging conversation moderated by Danielle Davenport, […]

Against Evolution

How do novelists capture the hyper development that devastates natural environments and wildlife? Can the tools of fiction be deployed to question, if not stop, the apparent compulsion for turning nature into resources and products? Delving into different ecosystems—the mountains of Tibet, the Malayan jungle, and the Mojave Desert—Chen Fu-Hsu (What’s a Snow Leopard to […]

Politics and the Responsibility of Writing, presented by New York Review Books

Amid the polarized politics and censored speech of our current moment, everyone with a platform is being urged to speak up. But do all writers have a responsibility to be political? What does political writing look like in today’s climate—and how effective is it? Three award-winning authors, academics, and regular contributors to The New York […]

When Worlds Collide: How the NYC Underground Rewrote Global Culture

What happens when Uptown rhyming meets Downtown noise? Join legendary visual artist, filmmaker, and cultural pioneer Fab 5 Freddy, whose brand-new memoir Everybody’s Fly drops readers directly into the birth of hip-hop and the East Village art explosion, and Gillian McCain, co-author of the seminal punk oral history Please Kill Me, which is celebrating its […]

Musical Lives Revisited

What is the relationship between the lives and the legacies of some of our most familiar musical voices? And how has each changed since the peak of their fame? Join Joshua Jelly-Schapiro (Daylight Come: Harry Belafonte and the World He Made), Margena A. Christian (It’s No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown’s Legendary Songwriter […]

Storytellers: Muslims, Community, and Culture in America (In Person)

Twenty-five years after 9/11, stories about American Muslims have too often been told by others. This conversation explores the power of communities telling their own stories through Storytellers: Muslims, Community, and Culture in America, a nationally distributed public radio documentary. Join reporting lead Aida Alami and comedian and host Sabeen Sadiq for a discussion about […]

Pictures and Screens: Writing Art History After Post-History (In Person)

This panel, moderated by photographer and writer Chris Wiley, explores The Society of the Screen: Vilém Flusser’s Radical Prescience, (MIT Press) by Martha Schwendener, art historian and critic, and the painter James Hyde’s The Trouble with Space in Painting: A Critical History  (Bloomsbury Academic). These books confront what history means at a time described as […]

John Johns: The Greatest Black Abolitionist You’ve Never Heard Of (In Person)

Join Julia Shipley for a conversation about John Johns, the greatest Black abolitionist you’ve never heard of. Discover the story of his 300-mile journey to freedom, and explore why his name has largely vanished from history, even though he sat down with Mark Twain in 1888 for the express purpose of preserving the extraordinary story […]

Banned, Challenged, Defended: Librarians Speak Out (Virtual)

Book challenges and bans continue to shape libraries and communities nationwide. Join librarians for a candid conversation about intellectual freedom, censorship, and the realities of responding to book challenges. Drawing on their professional experiences, they will discuss how librarians balance access, community concerns, and the freedom to read while serving the public. Moderated by Kate […]

The Literary Lounge (In Person)

Literary Lounge is a welcoming gathering for book lovers and the book-curious alike. Spend time in community through Rapid Reads (speed-style book chats), a DIY Bookmark Station, Design a Book Cover, and a Book Xchange where you can swap a gently loved book for a new read. Enjoy music, connect with fellow readers, discover your […]

Battle of the Genres (In Person)

Faculty and students of the St. Francis College MFA program will face off against each other in an all-out Battle of the Genres. Readers will alternate readings in different genres and the audience will vote on which genre won the battle at the end of the event. Who will win? Poetry? Nonfiction? Fiction? You’ll have […]

Behind the Counter: Stories from the Dominican Bodega (Virtual)

For many Dominicans, the neighborhood bodega is more than a corner store. It is a gathering place, a cultural archive, and a second home. Join authors Hilda Eunice Burgos (the Bodega Cats series), Abel Veloz (The Last Bodega in Jersey, Vol. I), and Amaris Castillo (Bodega Stories) for a conversation on writing Dominican-owned bodegas as […]

Pink Crime: How the Law Is Punishing Pregnancy, Motherhood, and Gender Identity (In Person)

This event celebrates the release of the book Pink Crime: Fighting Against the Criminalization of Motherhood, Pregnancy, and Gender Identity (The New Press, August 2026). The panel will feature the book’s author, Professor Valena Beety, and Tasha Mercedez Shelby, a writer and advocate. These speakers will be in conversation with Brooklyn Law School Professor Kate […]

Seven Spouting Devils—One Night (In Person)

Spuyten Duyvil Press presents an evening of fiction and poetry. Join Spuyten Duyvil authors Vincent Czyz (Sun Eye Moon Eye), António Gomes (Love in the Shadow of Death), Caroline Hagood (Death and Other Speculative Fictions), John Madera (Nomad Science), Ian S. Maloney (South Brooklyn Exterminating), John Reed (Year of Valentines), and Greg Sanders (The Suffering […]

Writing About Loss, Illness, and Disability: Three Memoirists on Pain and Hope (In Person)

Memoirists Stephen Policoff (A Ribbon for Your Hair), Darcey Steinke (This Is the Door), and Avra Wing (Stride) will discuss their personal stories of family loss, pain, and catastrophic injury. Stephen’s daughter died of a rare disease and his wife, of cancer. Darcey underwent back surgery and explored the historical contexts of pain. Avra was […]

Books & Bluegrass (In Person)

Join The Urbane Arts Club and High Line Literary Collective for a balmy Southern-inspired September night with special guests Erin Austen Abbott (Small Town Living) and Landon Bryant (Bless Your Heart), live music, and mingling over light bites and themed cocktails. It’s sure to be a magical evening at this Victorian mansion and former speakeasy […]

Media, Money, and the Midterms: How National Politics Impacts New York Voters (In Person)

Maya Kornberg, author of Stuck: How Money, Media, and Violence Prevent Change in Congress, and Ian Rosenberg, author of Terrible Stuff Damaging Everybody: The True Story of Lies and Libel in Dominion v. Fox, will discuss current threats to our democracy, from violence against politicians and the distortive influence of big money in politics, to […]

Art Spiegelman Discusses In the Shadow of No Towers (In Person)

Twenty-five years after 9/11, BPL Presents welcomes the Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Maus, with a series of comix broadsides that captures the events of 9/11 and the calculated hijacking of that event by the Bush government. With this reissue of In the Shadow of No Towers, Art Spiegelman reminds us that politics, also, is the […]

Back and Forth: The Relationship Between Authors and Editors (In Person)

Join A Public Space editors Louis Harnett O’Meara and Taylor Michael for a discussion with Writing Fellows Carolina Murriel and Joanna Yamakami about where the editing and writing processes meet. This panel offers an intimate look behind the scenes of the relationship between authors and editors. Facilitated by current Editorial Fellows Berta Coll Bosch and […]

Resilient: First/Second Generation Immigrant Poets Define and Negotiate Identity (In Person)

We are willing to give up so much to assimilate into mainstream culture, but is it worth all that we lose? Poets Miguel Coronado, Jiwon Choi, Maja Lukic, and Tiffany Troy understand the tension of wanting to thrive in the diaspora while keeping true to their cultural identity and legacy, fully grasping that if we […]

Under the BQE Equinox Jazz “Flash Reading” and Party (In Person)

Listen to live jazz, sip a discounted cocktail courtesy of Kings County Distillery and hear authors and friends of Under the BQE Press Judson Merrill, Amy Wilkinson, Elaine Yellow Horse, Sean Anderson, and Helen Georgas celebrate the great autumnal shift between beginnings and endings as they read flash segments (5 minutes or less) from their […]

Crown Heights Lit Night! (In Person)

Three popular Crown Heights series team up for a fun and enlightening evening at famed neighborhood bar the Crown Inn! The Franklin Park Reading Series, World Transsexual Forum, and the Crown Inn Reading Series host a showcase of fresh poetry and prose from a mix of established and up-and-coming writers: Naima Coster (Take What You […]

Cults, Conspiracies, and the Complexities of Belief (In Person)

In times of cultural upheaval, the search for meaning and belonging can leave people vulnerable to powerful narratives, charismatic leaders, and manipulation. New York has long been a crossroads for spiritual, religious, and wellness movements promising transformation, salvation, and purpose. This panel brings together authors who have experienced the seductive pull of cults and those […]

Mosaic: Sa’K Pasé, Haiti (In Person)

Join us for a special public reading celebrating Mosaic Literary Magazine issues #44 and #45. Featuring contributors from our James Baldwin issue (#44) and our Haiti issue (#45), the evening brings these two landmark editions into conversation through poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. Together, the readings explore liberation, migration, identity, joy, and the enduring power of […]

Back to the Present: 50 Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace (In Person)

ISSUE Project Room and Franklin Furnace present an evening celebrating their respective anniversary seasons. The program coincides with the publication and release of Back to the Present: 50 Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace, edited by Franklin Furnace founder Martha Wilson, who will be in conversation with Bradley Eros, an alum of both organizations’ […]

Celebrating Women-Owned Black Bookstores (In Person)

Join the Center for Black Literature as we celebrate Women-Owned Black Bookstores. Inspired by the NYC Black-Owned Women Book Store Crawl, held in March 2026, the Center for Black Literature is proud to celebrate these remarkable women-owned bookstores that continue to enrich New York’s literary and cultural landscape. Brooklyn is home to an incredible network […]

Tipsy Bee Author Spelling Bee & Book Fair (In Person)

The Tipsy Bee returns to Bookends! Watch as your favorite authors try to spell words taken from their own books, reviews of their books, and from other literary and not so literary inspirations. The bee goes on until there is only one author standing! Who will it be? Participating authors include Cat Fitzpatrick, Laura Venita […]

“The Midnight Special: The Secret Prison History of American Music,” With Colin Asher (In Person)

Colin Asher tells of the extraordinary music created within the highest and thickest walls of America’s brutal, racist prison system. With five compelling portraits of musical artists whose careers span the 20th century, from folk and blues singer Lead Belly, to jazz pianist Elmo Hope, to rap artist Tupac Shakur. A celebration of joyful, angry, […]

Lost and Found: MUTHA x Pen Parentis x Lofty Pigeon Get Lit(erary), from Panel to Party (In Person)

Family can be made and unmade, lost and found. MUTHA and Pen Parentis present a night out with authors who speak to the complexity (and hilarity) of family—and how we can unite as a creative community. Featuring cartoonist Emily Flake (All Toddlers Are Scorpios); journalist and memoirist Emi Nietfeld (Acceptance and No Contact); and artist […]

No, YOU Tell It! “Passage” True-Life Tales with a Twist (In Person)

No, YOU Tell It! storytellers collaborate to develop true tales on the page, then swap stories to embody their story partner’s culture, identity, and life experience on stage. For this special Queens Bookend Event, produced in partnership with Culture Lab LIC, we’ve teamed up with New Women New Yorkers (nywomenimmigrants.org) in support of their mission […]

From the Stage to the Page: When Playwrights Write Prose (In Person)

Kim Merrill (Red Girl Jumping), Steven Fechter (The Big Breeze), and Alvin Eng (Our Laundry, Our Town), three accomplished writers who began in the theater, discuss their journeys from playwriting to fiction and memoir. What is lost and what endures? How do playwrights translate the immediacy of performance into the interiority of prose? What happens […]

Radical Ahjumma x KQT Pungmul: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s Dictee 서포트그룹 / Support Group (In Person)

Korean spirits, old and new… geonbae! Join Radical Ahjumma’s N. Jooyoun Kim (The Last Story of Mina Lee, What We Kept to Ourselves), Margaret Juhae Lee (Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History), and NEA Fellow S. Isabel Choi for an intimate celebration of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha’s DICTEE, a genre-challenging ode to grief, memory, […]

Belief, Belonging, and Breaking Free: Sex, Cults & Rock n’ Roll (In Person)

From a sexless marriage to a celibate cult community to the world of addiction and rock ’n’ roll, three authors discuss the courage it takes to tell the truth and write about the gritty underbelly of choices made. In this panel, memoirists Wendy B. Correa, Alisa Kriegel, and Priya Hutner explore themes of sexual repression, […]

Reframing the Headlines: Latinx Perspectives in Book-Length Journalism (Virtual)

Beyond the headlines are deeply human stories that deserve context, nuance, and understanding. In this conversation, Latinx authors and journalists use long-form journalism, research, and scholarship to illuminate some of today’s most pressing issues, including immigration, citizenship, history, identity, and the evolving experiences of Latines in the United States. Through rigorous reporting, in-depth research, and […]

BAAAD: Black Authors Against AI & Data Centers (In Person & Virtual)

During NY Climate Week, join the Black Hive, the climate/environmental justice formation at the Movement for Black Lives, for BAAAD (Black Authors Against AI & Data centers). Aya de León, Tyehimba Jess, and Cleyvis Natera will read selections of their fiction and poetry alongside organizers sharing strategies to push back against the harms AI and […]

The Crucible of Self-Discovery: Finding Yourself Through Fiction (Virtual)

Join Queer Indie and The Writing Community Chat Show for this panel on toxic perfectionism, creativity in survival mode, neurodivergent imagination, alternative methods of productivity, writing through trauma, and unraveling self-doubt. This discussion features authors and content creators from Queer Indie’s directory: C. J. Aggett, Anna Bloom, Dr. Mario Dell’Olio, Ross Young, Halo Scot, Anya […]

Midnight, Jazz, and Langston: Navigating Kindred Spirits (In Person)

Join poet and spoken word performance artists Lorraine Currelley, Ngoma Hill, Betty Pierre, and multi-instrumentalist Tony Crawford for an evening of music, poetry, and spoken word performance. Rooted in ancestral memory, this event is a passionate, poetic, musical exploration of identity, shaped by a continuum of collective history, culture, ancestral wisdom, time, and place; a […]

National Book Critics Circle Panel Discussion on Literary Criticism (In Person)

The National Book Critics Circle presents a panel discussion on both the craft of literary criticism and new opportunities for book critics in today’s challenging environment. The conversation will range from practical tips to the art of the review, and will feature Joanna Biggs (Yale Review), Emily Greenhouse (NYRB), Joumana Khatib (NY Times), and Zoë […]

Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize Shortlist Reading (In Person)

This Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize event features the shortlisted authors for 2026. Past winners include Mosab Abu Toha, Kaveh Akbar, and Blair L.M. Kelley. This talk will feature current shortlist nominees reading their work and in conversation. The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize was established in 2015 by the Brooklyn Eagles—young, engaged Brooklynites who […]

16th Annual Brooklyn Indie Party (In Person)

Greenlight is delighted to once again partner with the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP), as well as some of Brooklyn’s best independent book and magazine publishers, to throw a Brooklyn-sized party celebrating the spirit of literary independence in our borough. Partygoers are invited to have a drink, mingle with Brooklyn authors and publishers, […]

Art of Darkness: Writing the Weird (In Person)

Please join us for a day celebrating the art of capturing the odd on paper with a panel that covers the odd and unusual in fiction and nonfiction. Ranging from the horrifically chilling to high camp, fans and artists are encouraged to emerge from the shadows and share their love of literary oddities. Authors Ilise […]

Living in a Melting Metropolis: Our Memories of Summer (In Person)

Summer is a dichotomy of danger and delight. Extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in NYC. Residents in Southeast Queens and The Rockaways are some of the most at risk of dying of extreme heat, all while summer invites pleasure and fun. Celebrate the end of this paradoxical season with a reading […]

Odesa in Odyssey: Navigating Forms, Languages, and Cultures (In Person)

Odesa, Ukraine, is a city of wit, warmth, and, not for the first time, war. Panelists will read and discuss original work and translations rooted in the city. Natalya Sukhonos (Sunlight Trapped in Stone) explores her heritage, immigration, and Russia’s ongoing invasion in her latest poetry collection. Ian Ross Singleton reveals how Yuri Yanovsky‘s The […]

Traveling While Black: Black Women on Identity, Travel, Belonging, and Finding Home (In Person)

What does it mean for Black women to search for home across countries, memories, relationships, and within themselves? Join authors Ebony Walden and Chet’la Sebree for an intimate conversation on identity, belonging, and finding home. Moderated by Dr. Princess “Franny” Francois, this discussion explores how movement, travel, and lived experience shape who we become. The […]

EGOBIBL: A Launch Event for Queens’s Newest Literary Journal (In Person)

Join contributors to the inaugural issue of EGOBIBL, as they launch this exciting new literary journal from the students of The Q Studio Lab in Queens. Led by Eric M. B. Becker, award-winning literary translator and longtime editor of Words Without Borders and Asymptote, with Gina Jung, the journal showcases poetry, fiction, and nonfiction from […]

Publishing Revolutionary Books (In Person)

Things are weird and terrible and complicated out in the world. Can books help connect people, share information, and create real change in the world? Haymarket, Street Noise Books, and Verso are dedicated to doing just that with their publishing programs. In this panel, publishers talk about the power of stories, and their place in […]

Between Earth and Water: Readings on Migration, Belonging, and Survival (In Person)

What does it mean to live between worlds—between countries, languages, identities, and selves? On September 20th, Sunday Salon NYC presents Between Earth and Water, a reading featuring four writers whose new and recent work explores migration, belonging, the body, and survival across borders and generations. Spanning hybrid memoir, poetry, fiction, and narrative nonfiction, their work […]

Carousel: Comics Performances (In Person)

Carousel presents readings of graphic novels and comics, as performed by a diverse group of creators, featuring vivid projected imagery. Join us for a selection of some of the most exciting and inventive trends in graphic memoirs and fiction, followed by a book signing. Featuring: Morgan Boecher (Chicken Heart); Makee (Call Me Emma: One Chinese […]

Art of the Auto-dry-ography, presented by Lofty Pigeon Books

The “addiction memoir” has long been derided for being trite and predictable, but recovery can show memoirists new ways to understand the arc of their lives, beyond the expected biographical beats of rock bottom and sober serenity. In this conversation, Jessica Hoppe, Leslie Jamison, and Rax King will dig into the possibilities of sobriety in […]

The Brain, the Mind, the Mystery

What does it look like to expand the mind, and how do we do it? What stories do our brains tell us to survive? In this panel, three nonfiction authors contemplate the mysteries of the brain in narrative form, through scientific analysis, psychedelic history, and even personal experiments. Join us in conversation with Pria Anand […]

The Fiction Impulse in Nonfiction Criticism

Three literary critics consider the boundary between fiction and nonfiction, literature and criticism. While Sarah Chihaya (Bibliophobia), Andrea Long Chu (Authority), and Jeremy Gordon (See Friendship) immerse themselves in others’ fictions as they work, they must approach these works from another literary tradition, that of literary criticism. But are the novelist’s and critics’ impulses really […]

Alison Bechdel & Diane DiMassa In Conversation

Giants of queer cartooning, Alison Bechdel and Diane DiMassa have lived through and responded to decades of warmongering, anti-feminist rhetoric, and oppression. Diane DiMassa’s Hothead Paisan: Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist, released this year in a new edition from New York Review of Books, was a steam release valve for zine readers in the late 1980s to […]

How We Listen

Music does not exist in a vacuum but rather comes to life via its interplay with the listener and environment or devices through which it is experienced. When David Byrne explored these ideas in How Music Works (2012), streaming was still in its infancy. Now, a panel of distinguished music writers pick up where Byrne […]

How Does It Look? — A Conversation on Food Media and Culinary Storytelling

We’re all consuming food – in so many more ways than one. Over the past few decades, the rise and proliferation of food media has shaped tastes and experiences with important creative, cultural, and economic results. Join us for perspectives from chefs, food media figures, and authors of new cookbook and culinary nonfiction releases including […]

Warning, This is Not a Test

If Americans once believed in the sturdiness of our democratic order, we are now seeing just how easily that system can crumble—in a matter of months not years. But as these panelists reveal, our rights, norms, laws, and institutions have always been more vulnerable than we recognize or care to admit. Clay Risen (Red Scare) […]

Breaking and Rebuilding

As our social and political systems continue to falter—or fall apart completely before our eyes—many of us have started to interrogate what progress looks like, both now and in the more distant future. What do we need to change about our society, and about ourselves? Three writers—Saeed Jones (The People’s Project), Scaachi Koul (Sucker Punch), […]

Big Tech’s Big Heist – Cory Doctorow in Conversation with Adam Becker

We hear it again and again, the gospel of technological salvation. First, there was the promise of social media and other digital platforms (Amazon, Google, etc.) that became ingrained in our daily lives—but then devolved into what is widely acknowledged as much poorer-quality service and user experience. Now, it’s AI that’s supposed to save humanity […]

Motherhood & Daughterhood: What it Gives, What it Takes

There is a rich legacy of memoirs on mothering and being mothered, with each generation offering a new perspective on the relationship between mother and child and maternal archetypes—what we owe, let go of, and celebrate. Memoirists Molly Jong-Fast (How to Lose Your Mother), Amanda Hess (Second Life), and Hala Alyan (I’ll Tell You When […]

Branching Out: On the Future of Environmental Storytelling, presented by Orion Magazine

In the past few decades, what we traditionally think of as “nature writing” has undergone a notable and necessary shift—in the voices that participate in the conversation; in the relationship between nature writing and other literary genres; and even in what counts as an “environment” worthy of our attention. Nonfiction writers and Orion contributors Leslie […]

Resist!

How can comics storytelling help reconcile conflicts within  our collective and personal histories, speak truth to power, and fight for a more just and equitable society? Ben Passmore confronts the history of Black resistance in the United States with gravity, humor, and vulnerability in Black Arms to Hold You Up. Part memoir, part comics journalism, […]

Secrets of the Stacks: Where Painting and Sculpture Meet Books

New York is world-famous for its museums and art collections, offering an unrivaled visual experience. Those institutions house equally spectacular libraries of books, monographs and printed material related to artists, their creative processes and their lives. Join Ivy Blackman (Whitney Museum of American Art), Stephen Bury (The Frick Collection) and Bridget O’Keefe (MoMA) for a […]

Breaking Genre: When Artists Don’t Stay in Their Lane, Presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop

From horror poets to literary sci-fi novelists, genre and form boundaries are more porous than ever, especially for Asian American artists and storytellers. This multi-disciplinary panel of Asian American authors and artists – Samira Asma-Sadeque, Siyang Lim, Katie Yee – who challenge normative conventions, from blending forms to redefining the limits of genre itself. What […]

Story and Sovereignty 

Native and Indigenous writers come together to discuss creating within a settler-colonial framework, foregrounding ancestral modes of storytelling and thought in support of Indigenous sovereignty. With Chris La Tray (Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home), an Anishinaabe/Métis storyteller and a citizen of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians, Joseph Lee (Nothing More […]

Gaza: The First Draft of History

Three writers, Omar El Akkad (One Day Everyone Will Have Been Against This),  Sarah Aziza (The Hollow Half), and Ahmed Alnaouq (We Are Not Numbers) discuss the complexities of documenting recent or ongoing personal and collective crises upon the page, and the blurry line between what can be understood as the current events and as […]

It’s Puzzling: The Power of Crosswords and Games, presented by NYU

There’s more to puzzles than fun and games (though they are definitely fun and challenging). Join Barry Joseph, author of Matching Minds with Sondheim: The Puzzles and Games of the Broadway Legend, and Juliana Pache, author and creator of Black Crossword: 100 Mini Puzzles Connecting the African Diaspora, for a conversation taking a deeper look at the cultural significance of games and […]

The Power of Staying and the Power of Parting (In Person)

Three writers share intimate portraits of the ways mental illness and traumatic family dysfunction deeply impacted their lives. Meet Eamon Dolan, Executive Editor at Simon & Schuster and author of The Power of Parting: Finding Peace and Freedom Through Family Estrangement; Meg Kissinger, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of the bestselling memoir, While You Were […]

LGBTQ+ Stories Matter! (In Person)

From memoirs to novels, real folks and fictional characters, LGBTQ+ stories matter than more ever. Join us for a fun, impactful afternoon of queer and trans literary brilliance and story-making, featuring memoirist Terry Dyer (Surviving & Thriving as a Gay Black Man) and other storytellers (including you!) We will have books, refreshments, a musical performance, […]

Literary Community Craft Lab (In Person)

Connect and create with authors, writing mentors, and multimedia artists in a simultaneously programmed Community Craft Lab organized by Literary Craft Society (led by multi-awarded author and literary activist, Juliet Diaz) in partnership with the Talking Writing podcast. Featuring: The Unbannable Library exhibit of big books created by NYC writer-artist collaborations and produced by artist […]

Henry Flynt: About Transformations (In Person)

Henry Flynt will revisit his seminal 1961 Concept Art work, Transformations, offering a deep, contextual study of the piece and its varied guises over time. Rather than rushing toward an explanation, Flynt will situate Transformations within a wider philosophical and artistic framework, fully exploring Transformations as: a diversion from absurdist computationalist music; a diversion from […]

15th Annual Brooklyn Indie Party (In Person)

Greenlight is delighted to once again partner with Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP), as well as some of Brooklyn’s best independent book and magazine publishers, to throw a Brooklyn-sized party celebrating the spirit of literary independence in our borough. Partygoers are invited to have a drink, mingle with Brooklyn authors and publishers, discover […]

Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City with the American LGBTQ+ Museum (In Person)

Historian Elyssa Maxx Goodman is joined by iconic New York City drag artists for a theatrical performance inspired by her National Bestseller book, Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City. Following this never-before-seen interpretation of figures from the book’s ode to drag throughout the ages, both Goodman and the drag artists […]

Scrappy Reading Series (In Person)

Five emerging and established writers will answer this question at this month’s edition of the Scrappy Reading Series, supported by the Red Hook Branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Join us as these writers share how they interpret “scrappy,” and how they embody this in their writing lives, personal lives, love lives, and any other […]

Our New Histories: The Debut BIPOC Writers Reshaping Literature (In Person)

Restless Books, Tin House, Amistad, and Ecco present four ascendent authors whose first releases shook 2025. Camille U. Adams traces her family’s legacy of secrets and abandonment in the Trinidadian memoir How to Be Unmothered; individual longing and a Yoruba prophecy collide in Olufunke Grace Bankole’s intergenerational novel The Edge of Water; Tramaine Suubi follows […]

Radical Histories: A Roundtable of Korean/American Authors (In Person)

Moderated by Jane Yong Kim, Korean American authors Alice Sola Kim, Cathy Park Hong, Ed Park, Gina Chung, and Hannah Bae discuss their work in relation to the spirit of radicalism in the Korean diasporic imaginary as exemplified by the latest installments in Kaya Press’ Magpie Series for Korean Literature in Translation: Djuna‘s speculative fiction […]

Beyond the Acclaimed Debut (In Person)

The John Leonard Prize celebrates the year’s best first book. Incredible attention is lavished upon debut authors, but once it’s time to get back to work, how do acclaimed writers work within the limelight and around expectation to carry on with their careers? 2024 Leonard Prize finalist Carrie Courogen (Miss May Does Not Exist), 2024 […]

St. Francis College New Releases (In Person)

This event will feature new releases in various genres and exciting work from St. Francis College faculty and students. Get ready to be transported through time and space by these lively narratives. Readers will include Theo Gangi, Caroline Hagood, Jive Poetic, Mitchell Levenberg, Jason Dubow, Marielena Gomez, and Clarence A. Haynes. St Francis College Auditorium […]

Something Like a Circus or a Sewer: Lives of Downtown (In Person)

Between 1970 and 2000, New York was the most precarious and exciting arts capital on earth. Even as the city staggered from crisis to crisis, it was home to pioneering hip-hop artists, punks and poets, subway taggers, and gallerists who saw them as the next Big Thing. Join us in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn for a […]

Weaver of Dreams, Voice of Conscience: Celebrating the Life and Legacy of Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o (In Person)

In May, the groundbreaking Kenyan writer and activist Ngũgĩ Wa Thiong’o died. Ngũgĩ braved prison, exile, and beatings—and attacks on his family—to speak the truth about both colonial and “post-colonial” Africa. He wrote plays, novels, essays, poetry, and criticism. His novel Devil on the Cross was composed on toilet paper in prison. Ngũgĩ called on […]

Italian-American Immigrant Dreams (In Person)

Come join us at the Old Stone House of Brooklyn for a special Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Event celebrating Italian-American immigrant stories. Authors Suzanne Uttaro Samuels (Seeds of the Pomegranate), F.K. Clementi (South of My Dreams: Finding My American Home), and Cathy Gigante-Brown (Immigrant Hearts) will read from and discuss their new novels and their […]

Diversity, Democracy, and New York City Schools (In Person)

Join NYU Press authors Alexandra Freidus (Unequal Lessons: School Diversity and Educational Inequality in New York City) and Ryane McAuliffe Straus (Divided by Choice: How Charter Schools Diminish Democracy) for a panel discussion with journalist Michael Elsen-Rooney (Chalkbeat New York) about the problems affecting NYC schools today. They’ll tackle a wide range of issues, from […]

Ctrl+Alt+Lit: Fan Fiction, Zines, and Independent Literature (In Person & Virtual)

From Tumblr threads to self-published novels, alternative literature is rewriting how we tell stories and who gets to tell them. Ctrl+Alt+Lit will explore how alt-lit remixes cultural narratives and creates community beyond traditional publishing, diving into a world shaped by parasocial relationships, the internet, and all of the media therein, including fan fiction, zines, newsletters, […]

Tipsy Bee Author Spelling Bee & Book Fair (In Person)

The Tipsy Bee returns with our grown-up spelling bee! Root for your favorite authors – Abraham Chang, Erin Crosby Eckstine, Danny Goodman, Elyse Graham, Jakob Guanzon, and Olivia Wolfgang-Smith – as they try to spell literary-inspired words. Last year’s champ Hyeseung Song will be there as an official lifeline for struggling spellers. As the featured […]

The Harlem Writers Guild Celebrates 75 Years of Literary Excellence (Virtual)

Founded in 1950, the Harlem Writers Guild proudly celebrates 75 years of literary excellence and its mission to amplify African American voices. Join us for an unforgettable evening honoring the world’s oldest continuous organization of Black writers. Hear powerful readings from the works of legendary members—John Oliver Killens, Maya Angelou, Audre Lorde, Ossie Davis, Ruby […]

Behind the Pen (In Person)

Join A Public Space Editorial Fellows Yasmin Bashir and Theodore Heil for a discussion with Writing Fellows Kasia Nikhamina, Raina Wellman, and Yaw Atuobi about craft, language, translation, folklore, and literature that inspires their writing. This panel offers a look at how each of the writers’ work is thematically entangled with one another. Unnameable Books […]

No, YOU Tell It! “Prom Queens” True-Life Tales with a Twist (In Person)

No, YOU Tell It! Storytellers work together to develop true tales on the page, then swap stories to embody their story partner’s culture, identity, and life experience on stage. For this Bookend Event, four contributors to the forthcoming Prom Queens: Celebrating Prom Poems & Stories by Queens Writers anthology from Poets of Queens (poetsofqueens.com) will […]

What We Didn’t Expect: MUTHA x Pen Parentis x Lofty Pigeon Get Lit(erary), from Panel to Party (In Person)

Don’t believe what’s expected—reality is a shock in all aspects and stages of parenthood and partnership. MUTHA and Pen Parentis present a night out with parents who are writers/artists across genres that take on taboo topics: novelist Domenica Ruta (All The Mothers); cartoonist Rachel Deutsch (The Mother); and Hip Mama founder and memoirist Ariel Gore […]

To the Heart of It (In Person)

How does falling in love work? This in-conversation program explores contemporary ideas about gender and relationships through comics autobiography with Štěpánka Jisolvá and Stephanie Nina Pitsirilos. This Brooklyn Book Festival Bookend Program is presented by the Czech Center New York and Graphic Mundi. Czech Center New York – 321 E 73rd St, New York, NY […]

Voices from the Margins (Virtual)

Join the Center for Black Literature virtually as we engage with contributors from the anthology We Refuse to Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men. Editor Angela P. Dodson will be in conversation with Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and Nicole Bailey-Williams on their respective pieces “Why They Kill Us” and “Education as Activism.” This […]

No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement from Atlanta to NYC (In Person)

Join us as we celebrate the release of No Cop City, No Cop World: Lessons from the Movement, a collection of essays published in May 2025 by Haymarket Books. The event will bring together co-editors and contributors to the book, along with organizers from Atlanta and NYC. Discussion will focus on the movements for environmental […]

We are the Genre (In Person)

Writers Jordan E. Franklin, Caroline Hagood, Paula Cisewski, Matthew Daddona, and Jiwon Choi will embark on a candid exploration of how we embody our own forms of writing. Whether we’re engaged in poetry, fiction, memoir, biography, etc., we can’t help but go beyond the borders of genre to create work that endeavors to fully capture […]

a/wake in the water: voices in protest (In Person)

“Books and all forms of writing are terror to those who wish to suppress truth.” – Wole Soyinka. Join our community of poets, spoken word performers, writers, artists, and musicians for a gathering of community, performance, and artivisim, featuring performers Edward Currelley, Lorraine Currelley, and Betty Pierre. Mott Haven Library – 321 East 140th Street, […]

Franklin Park Lit Night (In Person)

Two popular series based at Crown Heights’s famed Franklin Park Bar and Beer Garden team up for a fun and enlightening evening! The Franklin Park Reading Series and World Trans Forum host authors Amie Barrodale (Trip, You Are Having a Good Time), Zefyr Lisowski (Uncanny Valley Girls), Chet’la Sebree (Blue Opening), and Emily Zhou (Girlfriends) […]

#YeahYouWriteBKBF (In Person)

An evening of readings, #LiteraryCocktails, food, fun, #OpenMic, Rapid-Fire Q&A, and book sales/signing with Moon Unit Zappa, Lauren Morrow, and Princess Joy L. Perry. We’re celebrating the Brooklyn Book Festival’s 20th Anniversary and #YeahYouWrite’s 10th! Someday Bar NYC – 364 Atlantic Ave,
Brooklyn, NY 11217 – accessible entrance & restroom https://yeahyouwriteevents.com/

The Weather Report with Andrew Ross (In Person)

The grisly future of climate change has arrived sooner than forecasted and the parties responsible have no intention of walking away from their power or profits. This panel of leading writers on climate change will name the histories that brought us here, chart our own power and responsibility as we adapt to a climate-imperiled planet, […]

Secrets of the Stacks: Garden Edition

When you think about botanical gardens, flowers, trees and beautiful landscapes come to mind. What you likely don’t think of are libraries. But found within the world’s most renowned gardens are significant botanical research libraries with unique and historic collections. Join Stephen Sinon, LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s William B. O’Connor Curator of Special Collections, Research […]

The Stories of a People, A Language, a Place…

Where better than a library to hold and embody the countless stories that make up a culture? Join Susan Bronson, from the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst MA, Shawn Iwaoka from the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, and Susan A. Fletcher, from the McCracken Research Library in Cody, WY for a conversation about […]

A.I. and the Writer: An Unlikely Friendship – Presented with NYU’s 370J Project.

One novelist, one memoirist and one poet — all working with A.I. as muse, collaborator and inspiration from the early days of generative A.I. to ChatGPT and into an uncertain future. What are the possibilities of A.I. for writers, and what are the perils? Join essayist and author Ethan Gilsdorf (Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks […]

Writing Personal and Collective Histories

Writers Hisham Matar (My Friends), Rania Mamoun (Something Evergreen Called Life, trans Yasmine Seale), and Omar Khalifah (Sand-Catcher, trans Barbara Romaine) come together to discuss the duty of the writer during periods of global crisis, in a conversation moderated by writer and translator Yasmine Seale. What do writers owe their collective communities, as contemporary artists […]

After 10/7: Power, Politics, and Free Speech on Campus

The campus protest movement that arose in response to the Israel-Hamas war has precipitated a crisis that extends far beyond the walls of Academe—and far beyond questions relating to the war itself. From administrative crackdowns on student organizations to the controversial testimony of Ivy League university presidents before Congress concerning the competing claims of student […]

History in Comics 

Graphic novels excel at bringing human history to visual life, but there’s much more to the process than simply picturing the past. Glynnis Fawkes (1177 B.C.: A Graphic History of the Year Civilization Collapsed) puts on her archaeologist’s hat to adapt Eric Cline’s award-winning book; John Vasquez Mejias expands his parents’ stories of a 1950 […]

Inner Worlds Intersecting On The Outside

We are the sum of our interactions. Whether they last minutes or decades, each can unearth what we’ve buried deep. Dash Shaw’s Blurry shows how slightly connected strangers can create a kaleidoscope of meaning. Jon Macy’s graphic biography of Modernist genius Djuna Barnes reveals the true identities of her fictional characters. Leela Corman’s Victory Parade […]

Shedding Light, Carrying Light: Bringing Family History into the Future

When you’re raised on a family history of persecution and perseverance, the sense of responsibility for carrying it forward can feel immense. And if you find yourself questioning its expectations while witnessing new menace in the present day, your task as a storyteller can be even more challenging – and more fruitful. Solomon Brager (Heavyweight), […]

Secrets of the Stacks of New York City

If you think all libraries are similar, think again. NYPL’s Library for the Performing Arts houses one of the world’s most extensive research collections in theater, film, dance, music, and recorded sound; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a world-leading cultural institution devoted to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused […]

Dreaming of Freedom: How We Move Beyond an Expanding Police State 

With “robot dogs” at the border, automated surveillance, and arbitrary decisions controlling probation and parole, a system of policing and punishment seems less concerned with fairness or safety than with social control. What does it all have to do with justice? Join sociologist Ruha Benjamin (author of Imagination: A Manifesto), journalist Ben Austen (Correction: Parole, […]

Defining and Cultivating the New “Greater Good”

While the term “solidarity” is perhaps most associated with socialists and labor organizers, at its core the concept simply refers to uniting behind a common good. But how do we begin to carve out a common good in these times of extreme inequality and polarization? Is such a thing even possible? Astra Taylor (Solidarity: The […]

The 2024 Election: How Did We Get Here? 

This year’s presidential election is a confrontation with forces shaping American politics for generations to come. The country’s decision stands to reshape the soul of American democracy itself. With David Austin Walsh (Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right), Nancy L. Rosenblum (co-author of Ungoverning: The Attack on the Administrative State and […]

2024 BoBi Honoree Roz Chast and Liana Finck In Conversation

Sharing a keen eye for the absurd in everyday life, cartoonists Roz Chast, the Festival’s 2024 BoBi Honoree, and Liana Finck have inspired each other for years. Join them for a typically hilarious, thoughtful conversation about their new works — Chast’s I Must Be Dreaming, a surreal tour of dream theory and her own dream […]

What is “Reality?”

It is often said about American life and the media that we occupy two “different realities.” Similarly, we hear about the new synthetic reality of deepfakes, generative AI, and the metaverse. But what if “reality” has always been a shakier proposition than we realized? For this wide-ranging panel, three very different authors, with three very […]

Hallowed Ground: Claiming a Literary Inheritance

In Where We Stand: Speech, Place, Justice (trans Padma Viswanathan), Djamila Ribeiro issues a rallying cry for Black Brazilian feminists to stake their own ground, inspired in many ways by figures such as Sojourner Truth, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde. Meanwhile, new works by Edwidge Danticat (We’re Alone) and Dionne Brand (Salvage: Readings from the […]

A Borderless Earth/National Borders 

People seeking to change their lives by relocating across national borders cannot simply migrate like birds to better places at will, but must navigate and deal with government policies, cultural roadblocks, and prejudices. Authors Jonathan Blitzer (Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of A Crisis), Zeke Hernandez […]

Writing Resistance

From Mumbai to Tenochtitlan—the ancient capital of the Aztec empire—and a fictional city called Nevers; disparate landscapes come to life in the voices of their inhabitants. In their latest books, authors Devika Rege (Quarterlife), Álvaro Enrigue (You Dreamed of Empires, trans Natasha Wimmer), and Dorothy Tse (Owlish, trans Natascha Bruce) track the collision of worlds […]

Are We Okay? 

Join Coretta Scott King Award-winning author Jas Hammonds (Thirsty), illustrator and memoirist Jonell Joshua (How Do I Draw These Memories?), and New York Times bestselling author John Schu (Louder Than Hunger) for a conversation about the challenges and freedoms of writing about teen’s mental health and its effect on their relationships. Moderated by Elvira K. […]

Debt, Solidarity, and Economic Justice presented by the Brooklyn Law School 

A conversation about the legal, political, and economic forces shaping debt markets and horizons for change and the abolition of debt featuring: Luke Messac (Your Money or Your Life: Debt Collection in American Medicine), Chrystin Ondersma (Dignity Not Debt: An Abolitionist Approach to Economic Justice), Melissa Jacoby (Unjust Debts: How Our Bankruptcy System Makes America […]

The False Promises of the Workplace 

What do we want from our jobs, and what do our jobs want from us? And have we arrived at a moment where these answers might be changing? Carrie Sun (author of Private Equity: A Memoir) discusses with former Teen Vogue executive editor Samhita Mukhopadhyay (The Myth of Making It: A Workplace Reckoning) and historian […]

Uncovering New York

New York: There’s no city quite like it in the world, so naturally it comes with infinite histories of its own, personal, cultural, and political. Authors Ava Chin (Mott Street: A Chinese American Family’s Story of Exclusion and Homecoming), Tanisha Ford (Our Secret Society: Mollie Moon and the Glamour, Money, and Power Behind the Civil […]

Home and Home: A First-Generation Cookbook Conversation

Adaptation. Variation. Nostalgia. Connection. American chefs, writers, and creatives of immigrant backgrounds expand our culinary landscape and cultural imagination in unique ways. Chef and author Sohla El-Waylly (Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook) moderates a conversation between three debut cookbook authors – Kiano Moju (AfriCali: Recipes from My Jikoni), Tu David Phu (The […]

Playing Like a Girl: The Double-Binds and Brilliant Subversions of Women in Popular Music

It’s the same old story, or is it? The unruliness of male performers is seen as proof of their irrepressible genius while their female counterparts are dissected and interrogated for seemingly every move they make. Who gets to act like a proverbial rockstar and who doesn’t? Who gets recognized and written into the story of […]

AAWW Presents: “What do you mean funny? Like a clown?” – The Politics of Comedic Depiction

Writers and comedians Sureni Weerasekera, Pooja Reddy, and Zubi Ahmed discuss what, on a fundamental level, makes a joke funny or unfunny. How have Asian American artists contended with comedic depictions of Asian Americans generally? How has humor been used by both the powerful and the disenfranchised, to subjugate and to liberate? Moderated by Jafreen […]

Containing Multitudes: Memoirs of Self-Realization 

Beyond just chronicling a life, the memoir has long been a site for the discussion of self-realization and discovery, of inquisition and reckoning. In each of their books, Tracy O’Neill (Woman of Interest), Lucy Sante (I Heard Her Call My Name), and Carvell Wallace (Another Word for Love) explore themselves on the page, digging into […]

Brooklyn Public Library’s Book Prize Winners’ Panel with Katy Waldman

Hear the winners of this year’s Brooklyn Public Library’s Book Prize discuss their work with journalist Katy Waldman, who will delve into the books’ inception and creation. Each fall, Brooklyn Public Library honors outstanding works of nonfiction and fiction/poetry with the BPL Book Prize. Past winners include Catherine Lacey, Lamya H, John Paul Brammer, Xochitl Gonzalez, […]

Gatekeeping in Food Writing and The Food World 

Most recently, revelations at Bon Appetit magazine have made evident the role that gatekeeping plays in the food and food media worlds in terms of preventing women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other marginalized communities from getting a seat at the table. This panel will explore this dynamic of exclusion, as well as how members of marginalized […]

Imagining Other Americas 

Presented with the New York Review of Books. We are living in an America that was, not very long ago, unimaginable to many of us: a country whose political life, economic prospects, and natural environment all resemble something out of dystopian (or, in the case of the environment, science-fiction). This panel gathers together a varied […]

Vision and Revisions in Popular Music 

The story of popular music—the meaning and legacy of its key figures and unrecognized innovators, and how it has both shaped and reflected the societal forces, conversations and revolutions of our times—is forever being written and rewritten. Explore with three bold chroniclers of sound and politics: Sasha Geffen (Glitter Up the Dark: How Pop Music […]

Art Activism and Curatorial Perspectives

Kimberly Drew, arts writer, curator, and activist, This Is What I Know About Art, in conversation with celebrated photographer, artist, curator and author, Deborah Willis talking about art as both a reflection on society and an opportunity to change society and make inclusive space for artists. Moderated by Naomi Extra, scholar, poet and writer.

Colson Whitehead & Arundhati Roy – A Reading 

Colson Whitehead and Arundhati Roy, two writers whose work has become powerfully embedded in our imagination over the past few decades, read from their recent work, followed by Q & A.  Whitehead, winner of the 2017 BoBi award, will read from his novel, The Nickel Boys, winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Roy, […]

Food Justice: Eating for A Better Tomorrow

Eating today carries the weight of a myriad of environmental and social issues, and in doing so raises many questions about what it means to be a conscious and conscientious consumer, and the degree to which this is possible. This panel examines how we as eaters and cooks are complicit in these issues but also […]

Art Talk: POV

Jerry Saltz, a Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic, senior art critic of New York Magazine and author of How To Be An Artist and Darby English, art historian, Carl Darling Buck Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago and author of To Describe a Life: Notes from the Intersection of Art and Race Terror, […]

Beyond Representational Politics 

As recent but all too familiar events force the country to grapple with its legacy of violence and racism, igniting a hopeful movement for substantive change across government and within industries, it is vital to engage not only perennial questions about representational politics in publishing, but also the material and demographic inequities in the industry […]

Pandemic Times 

How will life in the pandemic define society or change it? Mark Honigsbaum (The Pandemic Century: 100 Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris), Paolo Giordano (How Contagion Works: Science, Awareness and Community in Times of Global Crisis), and Sonia Shah (Pandemic: Tracking Contagions from Cholera to Ebola and Beyond) discuss personal and political responses to […]

Stand Up, Speak Out

From humor to horror, from journalism to first-person POV, these authors explore connections between uprisings of the past and speaking out loud in the present day. Travel from the protests against war and incarceration in the 1970s with Jared Reinmuth (Big Black: Stand at Attica) and Derf Backderf (Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio) to […]

Jim Crow New York

For most of our history the story has gone that white Southerners were racists while white Northerners were not. Today that myth is largely dismantled, thanks in part to two historians whose books lay bare the pernicious and widespread racism up north, and lift up the leaders and movements fighting these systems. Clarence Taylor (Fight […]

Multiple Witnesses, Multiple Realities 

Who do we trust to tell a story and who are the true witnesses to a reality impossible to understand from just one angle? Featuring Fernanda Melchor, Marcial Gala, and Nona Fernandez, this panel delves into the work of three vibrant new writers from Latin America whose novels provide polyphonic examinations of collective reckoning. Fernanda […]

Waking Up From The American Dream

 Is it still possible to improve your lot in life??  Was it ever? Essayist Eula Biss (Having and Being Had), cultural historian Imani Perry (Breathe: A Letter to My Sons), journalist Ada Calhoun (Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis), and economist Stephanie Kelton (The Deficit Myth) discuss who is and isn’t able to […]

Unraveling The Past 

Though what emerges are two very different reads, both authors share an investigative, almost true-crime approach to their overlapping subjects: where Nick Flynn (This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire) goes on a personal detective hunt into the mysterious events of his family’s traumatic past and his mother’s profound struggles during his childhood, […]

Preparing For The Presidential Elections 

Are we ready for this?​ Historian Carol Anderson (One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy), alongside former political consultant and Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson (Running Against the Devil) and New York Times editorial board member Jesse Wegman (Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College). […]

On Borders, Real and Imagined 

What is a border and who or what are they meant to contain? Poets and writers Claudia Rankine (Just Us: An American Conversation), Cathy Park Hong (Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning), and New York Times culture writer Jenna Wortham (Black Futures) discuss borders and their many manifestations through genre, race and ethnicity, migration, the […]

A Life in Reading 

Legendary critic and memoirist Vivian Gornick (Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader) speaks with Adrienne Miller, the first woman to be literary esquire at Esquire (In the Land of Men: A Memoir) about finding your place in the city, in the world, and sometimes in yourself, through reading and writing. Moderated by poet, translator, […]

Finish The Fight With The New York Times

Written by New York Times journalists, the now best-selling Finish the Fight captures untold stories in the fight for women’s right to vote, particularly the underrepresented but vital voices of BIPOC and queer activists. The Times is thrilled to join the Brooklyn Book Festival to discuss the genesis, creation, and impact of this recent release. […]

Race and Caste 

Does the concept of race hide more than it reveals? Join Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents) in conversation with sociologist Michael Eric Dyson (Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America, forthcoming) about racial hierarchy, the possibility of historical change, and rethinking the frameworks that brought us here.

Transcending Grief 

Although these authors explore the tragedy of losing family members and friends, they also highlight the triumph of finding new life in the vacuums every loss leaves behind. Join debut novelist Ilana Masad (All My Mother’s Lovers), National Book Award–winning novelist Sigrid Nunez (What Are You Going Through), and National Humanities Medal recipient Joyce Carol […]

True Crime 

Join Hallie Rubenhold, Baillie Gifford Prize-winning chronicler of the victims of Jack the Ripper, in conversation with Casey Cep, whose book on the courtroom drama of a 1970s serial killer, Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, was also shortlisted for the prize last year. They discuss their books, The Five […]

Technology’s Past and Future

How is technology changing our daily lives? And how may we change it for the better? Three recent books provide fascinating answers to these questions. Charlton McIlwain’s Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, From the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter, offers a compelling history and theory of how many forms of bias and subordination […]

Translating Lives and Legacies in Food Culture

Writing about family or historical figures presents a delicate challenge: How can a new work remain faithful to the work and words of others? How can it retain their voices, and the spirit that animates their efforts? How much should the themes of these personal stories transcend their subjects? And, of course, what can you […]

The Landscape of Loss

Grieving the loss of a loved one can feel like a tangle of contradictions: an experience at once intensely personal and subjective while also deeply, fundamentally human. Join Kat Chow (Seeing Ghosts), Adam Mansbach (I Had a Brother Once), and Nadia Owusu (Aftershocks) as they share their own journeys navigating this fraught yet fertile terrain—and […]

Driven By The Past

When critical analysis and even basic facts of American history are under attack, regarding events of four centuries ago or from earlier this year, what can we learn from stories of Black life that have been distorted, immortalized, or lost? How can African American storytelling traditions help charge and change what we understand about our […]

Incarceration and its Afterlives

Though they are often overlooked, the burdens of prison do not fall only on prisoners. The friends, loved ones, and communities of people who are incarcerated—and even those who have served their time and returned home—often find their lives reshaped. Sociologist Reuben Jonathan Miller (Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration) with […]

The Science of Life

Scientists and science writers discuss what it means to be alive in a world where life can be created, is under threat, and is still being discovered. Neil Shubin (Some Assembly Required: Decoding Four Billion Years of Life, from Ancient Fossils to DNA), Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein (The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, […]

Finding Ourselves and Our Tribe(s) in Popular Music

Danyel Smith (Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop) and Kelefa Sanneh (Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres) have lived, breathed, and written about music for decades—and their epic new books are both years in the making. But beyond the ambitious scope, what these projects share is […]

A Major Ingredient is the Cook

Three popular chefs talk about their new books: Cal Peternell (Burnt Toast and Other Disasters), chef of Alice Waters’ Chez Panisse; food and culture writer Matt Rodbard (Food IQ: 100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts, co-authored by Daniel Holzman) and Nicole A. Taylor (Watermelon and Red Birds: A Cookbook for Juneteenth […]

AAWW Presents: Writing in Wartime

Writers from Korea, Iraq, Vietnam, and Bangladesh join the Asian American Writers’ Workshop to discuss writing about war and its aftermath and effects on the Asian diaspora in America. Crystal Hana Kim, Faleeha Hassan, Ly Tran, and Jennifer Chowdhury will share their distinct perspectives with Jafreen Uddin, Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.

Secret of the Stacks

Did you know that New York City’s top cultural institutions house some of the rarest, most unique books, manuscripts, and printed materials found anywhere? Join Julie Golia, Associate Director of Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books and Charles J. Liebman Curator of Manuscripts at the New York Public Library, Jesse Erickson, the Morgan’s Astor Curator of […]

A Constructive Conversation About Elite Power and Change

From interminable inequalities and injustices to culture wars, our challenges can seem intractable and our discourse stubbornly fixed. Join Bill McKibben (The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon) and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics, and Everything Else) as they look with fresh eyes at systemic elitism in […]

Money and Madness

Can money really buy freedom? Why do we strive for wealth, even when it threatens to imperil us? Alexander Maksik’s The Long Corner and Whiting Award winner Hernan Diaz’s Trust both masterfully tackle these universal human dilemmas as they explore the gravitational pull of capital, the permeable nature of reality in a chaotic world, and […]

Reinventing the Memoir

Your story is never just your own—so many other voices and stories have and will shape it. What are the limits of memoir? What can you find in the margins of and gaps in memory, story, and realities? And how, ultimately, does the memoirist pull self, family, criticism, and history together within the confines of […]

A Critical and Constructive Conversation About Elite Power and Change

From interminable inequalities and injustices to culture wars, our challenges can seem intractable and our discourse stubbornly fixed. Join Bill McKibben (The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon) and Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò (Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics, and Everything Else) as they look with fresh eyes at systemic elitism in […]

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Memoirs by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Safiya Sinclair and Phillip Lopate

Presented with Brooklyn Public Library’s BPL Presents, three authors discuss new memoirs. Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, Ingrid Rojas Contreras writes, in The Man Who Could Move Clouds, a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary. How to Say […]

A Half Century of Hip-Hop

This summer’s grand celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary was beautiful and affirming for longtime fans and practitioners of this perennially maligned and underestimated genre/subculture. Now that the landmark events have passed, what do we make of not just the story of hip-hop but its evolving place in the public imagination? Jonathan Abrams (The Come Up: […]

Books Unbanned: A Night of Artivism (In Person)

Books Unbanned: A Night of Artivism is an afterparty with a purpose featuring live performances from acclaimed artists, activists and actors! The event will feature special guest authors including Ibram Kendi, Michael Harriot, Dr. Kaye Whitehead and more. Hosted by author and AAPF Executive Director Kimberle Crenshaw, the event will also feature music by a […]

PEN Presents: Free the Books

In facing the rising threats to the freedoms to read and imagine, PEN America convenes a dialogue with beloved writers on the recent and dramatic rise in the efforts to censor and silence Black and LGBTQ+ perspectives. New York Times bestselling author Casey McQuiston and independent publisher and children’s author Cheryl Willis Hudson, will be […]

How Art and Storytelling Shape Human Identity: A Conversation with Oliver Jeffers and Roxane Gay

Renowned and bestselling authors Oliver Jeffers (Begin Again) and Roxane Gay (Opinions) discuss the roles art and storytelling play in shaping human identities and communities, how these stories have contributed to prejudices and global conflicts throughout history and today, and where we go from here.

Reading Wars presented by The New York Review of Books

Reading and writing have rarely been as politicized in the US as they are today. While GOP governors and legislators enact bans on books and syllabuses they see as undermining core American values—targeting works that touch on race, gender, and sexuality—some on the Left have argued for purging syllabuses of once-canonical authors and even altering […]

Secrets of the Stacks 2023

The natural world, music and cultural heritage reside in the striking and unique library collections found in some of New York City’s top cultural institutions. Join Rhonda Evans, Director, Mertz Library at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the largest botanical research library, in the U.S; Dr. John O’Neill, Curator of Rare Books […]

Can the Future Be Saved? A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas and Chris Hayes

Can the Future Be Saved? A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas. In The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy, Anand Giridharadas profiles organizers, politicians, and ordinary citizens who live there without losing an unyielding faith that they can make the world they want to see one conversation at a […]

Celebrating Hilton Als, the 2023 Brooklyn Book Festival BoBi Honoree.

Pulitzer Prize winning critic Hilton Als, author of The Women, White Girls, and, most recently, My Pinup will be joined in conversation by writer and cultural critic Jennifer Krasinski.

Cookbook or Memoir: Genre-bending with Asian American Food Writers presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Join Asian American food writers Eric Kim (Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home), Priya Krishna (Indian-Ish: Recipes and Antics from a Modern American Family), Abi Balingit (Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed), and Betty Ann Quirino (Every Ounce of Courage: A Daughter’s Reflections On Her Mother’s Bravery) as they talk about what it means to […]

Books Unbanned: A Night of Artivism (In Person)

Books Unbanned: A Night of Artivism is an afterparty with a purpose featuring live performances from acclaimed artists, activists and actors! The event will feature special guest authors including Ibram Kendi, Michael Harriot, Dr. Kaye Whitehead and more. Hosted by author and AAPF Executive Director Kimberle Crenshaw, the event will also feature music by a […]

Played a Good Book Lately? (In Person)

We all remember Choose Your Own Adventures, but interactive stories have come a long way since the days of page-jumping pulp. What does it mean for a game to be literary in today’s media-saturated landscape? Join game designer and author Sharang Biswas, game editor and narrative designer Jess Haskins, Naomi Clark and game designer and […]

Creatures

What does the natural world reveal about the human one? Join Sabrina Imbler (How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures), astrobiologist Aomawa Shields (Life on Other Planets: A Memoir of Finding My Place in the Universe), and Ed Yong (An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us) […]

Laughing Through Life: Humor, Heart, and Honest Reflections

Get ready for a side-splitting and thought-provoking panel featuring authors and essayists Samantha Irby and Aparna Nancherla. In Quietly Hostile, Samantha Irby leads us through personal essays tackling life’s absurdities with a witty and candid perspective. Aparna Nancherla’s Unreliable Narrator weaves comedy and introspection into a unique experience of imposter syndrome. Led by Brian Vines, […]

Lifestyle in the Library

A library of food? about toys? Join Liz Williams, founder of the Southern Food & Beverage Museum and of the National Food & Beverage Foundation, Leslie Sam, Chief Librarian, Nunez Community College Library and Christopher Bensch, Vice President for Collections at The Strong National Museum of Play, in a discussion about developing and curating unique […]

Books Unbanned: Protecting the Freedom to Learn presented by the African American Policy Forum (AAPF)

The surprising rise of censorship in this country is a mounting threat to our democracy. Books by people of color and about racial justice have been among the most often banned titles in the last few years. To commemorate the first day of Banned Book Week, AAPF’s “Books UnbannedTM” tour, in partnership with The New Republic’s “Banned in […]

PEN Presents: Free the Books

In facing the rising threats to the freedoms to read and imagine, PEN America convenes a dialogue with beloved writers on the recent and dramatic rise in the efforts to censor and silence Black and LGBTQ+ perspectives. New York Times bestselling author Casey McQuiston and independent publisher and children’s author Cheryl Willis Hudson, will be […]

Cooking Across Borders

Across the African diaspora today, the word “foodways” conjures movement that is both multidirectional and multidimensional. Maria Bradford (Sweet Salone: Recipes from the Heart of Sierra Leone), Kenny Gilbert (Southern Cooking, Global Flavors), and Pierre Thiam (Simply West African: Easy, Joyful Recipes for Every Kitchen) embody personal and professional geographies that span the U.S., West […]

Can the Future Be Saved? A Conversation with Anand Giridharadas

In The Persuaders: At the Front Lines of the Fight for Hearts, Minds, and Democracy, Anand Giridharadas profiles organizers, politicians, and ordinary citizens who face insecurity, crisis, and division without losing an unyielding faith that they can make the world they want to see one conversation at a time. How do we get there from […]

On the Cancel Culture Spectrum

We all have been disappointed, dismayed or angry with creators, leaders and celebrities whose work we admire, but whose personal actions are inappropriate, reprehensible, or worse. But, as individuals, we are responsible to activate the cancel culture spectrum from punishment to redemption and need to consider ramifications. Is accountability the middle ground? Ernest Owens, The […]

Reclaiming Power Through Collective Resistance and Law presented by the Brooklyn Law School

How do ordinary people claim democratic power in a world of increased inequality and loss? Join us for a conversation about power, democracy, race, and the law as three leading thinkers discuss their new books. Jocelyn Simonson (Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People are Dismantling Mass Incarceration) explores how groups of people are engaging […]

From Mississippi to Minneapolis: A Continuum of White Violence

In their 2023 Pulitzer Prize-winning His Name Is George Floyd, Washington Post journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa contextualize Floyd’s life and death, looking at the story of the man—whose 2020 killing sparked the largest protests ever against racial injustice—through the critical lens of white supremacy past and present. Now, in this wide-ranging discussion led […]

Drag, Ballroom, and Cultural Consciousness

Drag and ballroom have long been fierce art forms, vehicles of self-expression, rebellion, celebration, and love. On this panel, authors Charles Busch (Leading Lady: A Memoir of a Most Unusual Boy), Elyssa Goodman (Glitter and Concrete: A Cultural History of Drag in New York City), and Ricky Tucker (And the Category Is: Inside New York’s […]

American Slavery, Today

Slavery’s centrality to American history has gained wide acceptance but few people understand how it continues to reach through the past and shape the experience of our country today. Join Rachel Swarns (The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church), Kidada E. Williams (I Saw Death Coming: A […]

Embrace the Unconventional: Reclaiming Your Freedom

This panel brings together the imaginative minds of Jenny Odell and Jessica Elefante as they challenge the norms of this disjointed era. Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell is a daring inspection of liberation from the clock’s constraints, while Jessica Elefante’s Raising Hell, Living Well: Freedom from Influence in a […]

Artificial Intelligence: Will AI Need Us?

Last spring, 2000 scientists signed a cautionary letter warning about the profound risks to humanity if artificial intelligence systems continue to develop unregulated. Benefits from mundane mapping to robot vacuuming, auto-completed texts and editing, as well as sophisticated manufacturing, medical, and military systems, are already in place. That AI will move on to develop into […]

Maggie Smith in conversation with Lauren Christensen

Author of You Could Make This Place Beautiful, Maggie Smith, uses her own personal experiences and expands to dissect traditional modern womanhood, patriarchal dynamics and power structures. She will be joined by moderator Lauren Christensen, New York Times book editor. Together, they will discuss self-exploration, what it means to discover power after loss and writing your own narrative.

How Art and Storytelling Shape Human Identity: A Conversation with Oliver Jeffers and Roxane Gay

Renowned and bestselling authors Oliver Jeffers (Begin Again) and Roxane Gay (Opinions) discuss the roles art and storytelling play in shaping human identities and communities, how these stories have contributed to prejudices and global conflicts throughout history and today, and where we go from here.

Secrets of the Stacks 2023

The natural world, music and cultural heritage reside in the striking and unique library collections found in some of New York City’s top cultural institutions. Join Rhonda Evans, Director, Mertz Library at the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, the largest botanical research library, in the U.S; Dr. John O’Neill, Curator of Rare Books […]

Reading Wars presented by The New York Review of Books

Reading and writing have rarely been as politicized in the US as they are today. While GOP governors and legislators enact bans on books and syllabuses they see as undermining core American values—targeting works that touch on race, gender, and sexuality—some on the Left have argued for purging syllabuses of once-canonical authors and even altering […]

Cookbook or Memoir: Genre-bending with Asian American Food Writers presented by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop

Join Asian American food writers Eric Kim (Korean American: Food That Tastes Like Home), Priya Krishna (Indian-Ish: Recipes and Antics from a Modern American Family), Abi Balingit (Mayumu: Filipino American Desserts Remixed), and Betty Ann Quirino (Every Ounce of Courage: A Daughter’s Reflections On Her Mother’s Bravery) as they talk about what it means to […]

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Memoirs by Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Safiya Sinclair and Phillip Lopate.

Presented with Brooklyn Public Library’s BPL Presents, three authors discuss new memoirs. Interweaving family stories more enchanting than those in any novel, Ingrid Rojas Contreras writes, in The Man Who Could Move Clouds, a luminous testament to the power of storytelling as a healing art and an invitation to embrace the extraordinary. How to Say […]

A Half Century of Hip-Hop

This summer’s grand celebration of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary was beautiful and affirming for longtime fans and practitioners of this perennially maligned and underestimated genre/subculture. Now that the landmark events have passed, what do we make of not just the story of hip-hop but its evolving place in the public imagination? Jonathan Abrams (The Come Up: […]

Food, Community, and California

 Food connects places, ingredients and, most importantly, people – a fact celebrated in new cookbooks from native or adoptive Californian authors Rahanna Bisseret Martinez (Flavor+Us: Cooking for Everyone), Tanya Holland (Tanya Holland’s California Soul), and Natasha Pickowicz (More Than Cake: 100 Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community). Connection, inspiration, reliance, and a spirit of service […]

The Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series Presents: New York Stories (In Person)

Miss Manhattan is excited to join the Brooklyn Book Festival as an official Bookend event with Miss Manhattan Presents: New York Stories. Created to give non-fiction writers a louder voice in the New York literary scene, the Miss Manhattan Non-Fiction Reading Series is hosted and curated by Manhattan-based writer and photographer Elyssa Goodman. This reading […]

Lab[our] Issue Launch (In Person)

In partnership with the Brooklyn Book Festival, Lampblack invites you to share in the launch of our third volume: Lab[our]. Merchandise and copies of the issue will be available for purchase, along with drinks at the Center for Fiction café. There will be live readings from the magazine, featuring t’ai freedom ford, James Stewart III, […]

Annual Brooklyn Indie Party! (In Person)

On Friday night, Greenlight is delighted to once again partner with Community of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP), as well as some of Brooklyn’s best independent book and magazine publishers, to throw a Brooklyn-sized party celebrating the spirit of literary independence in our borough. Partygoers are invited to mingle with Brooklyn authors and publishers, discover […]

– CHANGED TO ZOOM – The New Voices of Arab American Literature (Virtual)

In the contentious battleground of political America, Arab American writers have strived to drown out the divisive rhetoric through compelling, evocative portraits of life in the Arab world, diasporic ache, and subversion of embedded stereotypes. We meet with five Arab American writers to learn the narratives that guide their work, how they write and recollect […]

Spirit and Flesh: Our Bodies, Our Blackness, Ourselves (In Person & Virtual)

In her stunning 2022 debut, This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us, Cole Arthur Riley weaves three generations of family tales and contemplative reflections on belonging, dignity, and liberation. She joins Tracey Michae’l Lewis-Giggetts whose books Then They Came for Mine: Healing from the Trauma of Racial Violence and Black Joy: […]

The Shining by Dorothea Lasky (In Person)

Dorothea Lasky’s The Shining is an ekphrastic horror lyric that shapes an entirely unique feminist psychological landscape. In this collection, Lasky guides us through the familiar rooms of the Overlook Hotel, both realized and imagined, inhabiting characters and spaces that have been somewhat flattened in Stephen King’s text or Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptations. Dorothea Lasky […]

– CHANGED TO ZOOM – Let’s Get Mad: Celebrate a Mutha of a Decade (Virtual)

It’s a rager: mother-writers and artists get real, down and dirty, furious and funny about the lives of mothers (and others). Readings at Books are Magic Montague by Minna Dubin (Mom Rage), Amanda Montei (Touched Out), cartoonist Lisa Lim (A Darker Shade of Noir), and Deesha Philyaw (The Secret Lives of Church Ladies). Celebrating 10 […]

Queens, NY: Fact and Fiction (In Person)

Join authors and historians Rob MacKay, Seth Bornstein, and Rafael Herrin-Ferri as they dive into Queens history. They will discuss the borough’s built environment and how diversity influences our residences, the people, and their connection to our borough. Kew & Willow Books, 81-63 Lefferts Blvd, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 https://www.kewandwillow.com/

The Rumpus Presents Sapphic Storytelling: Queer eQuinox (In Person)

The Rumpus presents Sapphic Storytelling: Queer eQuinox at McNally Jackson’s Seaport location. Featuring authors Hannah Beresford, Jaquira Díaz, CJ Hauser, Lars Horn, T Kira Madden, and Kelley Van Dilla. Moderated by Rumpus Editor, Alysia Li Ying Sawchyn. In this series, we present writers we adore and use the term “sapphic” as a tongue-in-cheek term to […]

No, YOU Tell It! “Fly By” True-Life Tales with a Twist (In Person)

No, YOU Tell It! storytellers work together to develop true tales on the page, then swap stories to embody their partner’s culture, identity, and life experience on stage. For this special show, four curated storytellers are trading tales inspired by Queens history from the archives of The Greater Astoria Historical Society (astorialic.org). Plus, story trivia […]

John Oliver Killens Literary Salon: A Celebration of Black Fire This Time (In Person)

The Center for Black Literature, in collaboration with MoCada, will present the Killens Literary Salon with contributors to Black Fire This Time: Keisha-Gaye Anderson (Gathering the Waters), James E. Cherry (Edge of the Wind), Judy Juanita (De Facto Feminism), Quincy Troupe (Duende: Poems), and moderator Heather Buchanan (Aquarius Press). Black Fire This Time by Kim […]

An Evening with The Keepthings Presented by Ditmas Lit (In Person)

The Keepthings publishes short essays about lost loved ones, inspired by the things they left behind. Co-hosted by Ditmas Lit, this event will feature Keepthings contributors Tara Lindis, Matthew Lansburgh, Rachel Cline, Claudia Zuluaga, and Anja Wood sharing their stories and the objects that inspired them in front of a live audience for an evening of […]

The Lost Sons of Omaha: An American Tragedy (In Person & Virtual)

On May 30, 2020, in Omaha, Nebraska, 38-year-old white bar owner and Marine veteran Jake Gardner fatally shot James Scurlock, a 22-year-old Black man protesting the murder of George Floyd. Following an indictment, Gardner took his own life. In The Lost Sons of Omaha: Two Young Men in an American Tragedy, Joe Sexton offers a […]

Radical Publishing in Political Headwinds (In Person)

Publishers from independent presses discuss the imperative of publishing books that uplift marginalized and insurgent voices, create and complicate representation, and spark and amplify movements. This is even more critical during challenging political times when marginalized communities are disempowered, scapegoated, and stripped of their rights. Margot Atwell (Feminist Press), Malav Kanuga (Common Notions Press), Ramsey […]

Easily Slip Into Another World: A Life in Music with Henry Threadgill (In Person)

Henry Threadgill is a towering figure of contemporary American music. His autobiography is a riveting account of the music scene in Chicago in the 1960s, his experiences as a Black soldier in Vietnam, and the ensembles he has led—and is a powerful meditation on history, race, capitalism, and art. Henry Threadgill is one of only […]

Powerful and Dangerous: the Legacy of Audre Lorde (Virtual)

The Alice Austen House, nationally designated site of LGBTQ+ history, will host a virtual reading celebrating the legacy of Audre Lorde’s teaching. Join us as former students Kathleen Walsh D’Arcy, Donna Masini, Melinda Goodman, and Rosette Capotorto read their poetry and share memories of their time in Lorde’s literature program. https://aliceausten.org

A Night of Ancient Mystery, Mozart, & Merriment (In Person)

Please join the Coffee House Club’s Urbane Conspirators and HIP Lit for an unforgettable night cloaked in Gothic suspense as mysteries abound in readings, conversation, and music. To be held at Salmagundi, a private arts club housed in a historic brownstone mansion in Greenwich Village. All in celebration of the paperback release of Joanna Margaret‘s […]

VOICE: A Lens to Black Experiences (Virtual)

Diversity is a call to arms, challenging society to be inclusive. The Black community is richly diverse, comprising many villages. We compare the teachings of forefathers from other places and grandmothers who’d migrated north or across oceans by choice. We are the ancestors in our lineage. We perceive the world differently and filter those experiences […]

What’s Community Got to Do with It? (In Person)

Join the Resort writing community as we revisit the old stomping grounds of the LIC Reading Series (2015-’20). Denne Michele Norris (writer & editor-in-chief, Electric Literature), Greg Mania (Born to Be Public), and Matt Ortile (The Groom Will Keep His Name) will be in conversation with Resort & LIC Reading Series founder Catherine LaSota about […]

Starting Out: The Editor-Writer Relationship (In Person)

What is an editor’s role? How can an author work with an editor to elevate their writing? Join Writing and Editorial Fellows from A Public Space for a conversation about the editor-writer relationship. They’ll discuss lessons learned and insights gained, formative experiences, and their questions for each other about the surprises they found on their […]

Transcending Geographical and Temporal Boundaries on the Page (In Person)

What’s it like to resurrect a past book and prepare it for a second life in translation? Whether it’s a debut translated into a new language or a special reissue of essays first conceived decades past. What social mores or cues have changed that could impact reception? How do language and geographic location influence the […]

The Role of the Artist in a Time of Crisis (In Person)

From Booker Prize-winning poet, novelist, essayist, short-story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright Ben Okri & Africa Center CEO Uzodinma Iweala, comes a fascinating discussion on the role of the artist in a time of crisis. Whether it be climate change, the refugee crisis, racism, philosophy, the pandemic, or any number of varied topics he takes, […]

Cooking For These Times

The pandemic has changed home cooking and our relationship with our pantries, along with our concept of what “worthy” and “accessible” cooking projects entail. Over the last few months, homemade sourdough loaves have proliferated, yeast, beans, and flour have become treasured commodities, and experienced and fledgling home cooks alike have found themselves searching for new […]