Here you will find video programs from the previous years. Search by genre or the author’s name to find the exact content you’re looking for.
Fiction
In the trilogy’s conclusion, Olivie Blake’s The Atlas Complex, the Alexandrians return to the library in a race for survival, power grabs, and betrayal. In Graveyard Shift, M.L. Rio follows five night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the truths lurking in an open grave. In The Sapling Cage, Margaret Killjoy introduces us to Lorel, a trans woman who secretly joins a coven to learn witchcraft in the first book of a new trilogy. Join these authors for a conversation about dark secrets at gravesites and behind bookshelves, high stakes, and the real people in unreal situations, demonstrating fantastical imaginings of how to live in magical worlds. Moderated by Christopher John Farley
Fiction / YA
Go on an epic journey with renowned authors Adrienne Tooley (The Second Son), Ava Reid (A Study in Drowning), Chloe Gong (Foul Heart Huntsman), and Jordan Ifueko (The Maid and the Crocodile) as they discuss the elements that make up a thrilling and swoon-worthy romantasy novel–from a sapphic romance to a gothic Welsh fantasy to a Shakespeare retelling set in 1930’s Shanghai and finally a West African tale about a maid who can alter fates. Moderated by Maggie Lehrman, Associate Publisher of Abrams Children’s Books.
Fiction
In what ways does reckoning with our personal and political histories and archives allow us to reckon with ourselves? New works by Iman Mersal (Traces of Enayat, trans Robin Moger), Daniel Saldaña Paris (Planes Flying Over a Monster, trans Christina MacSweeney and Philip K. Zimmerman), Kateřina Tučková (The Last Goddess, trans Andrew Oakland), and Mircea Cărtărescu (Solenoid, trans Sean Cotter), recover figures made invisible by popular history, assess the ways literature and landscape have transformed their lives, and invite the multiverse into the archive, breaking new ground for autobiographical and historical writing. Moderated by Will Evans, Publisher of Deep Vellum Publishing
Fiction
Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon St
The past has a way of creeping up on you. In Fox, Joyce Carol Oates introduces us to Francis Fox, an enigmatic English teacher whose mysterious history catches up to him when his car is found submerged in a pond with an unidentified body. In Dwyer Murphy’s The House on Buzzards Bay, a group of college friends reunite at a beach house, but their vacation is interrupted by a sudden disappearance and the arrival of a stranger who knows their secrets. In S.A. Cosby’s, King of Ashes, an eldest son’s homecoming is overshadowed by his father’s car accident and his younger brother’s debt that puts the whole family’s livelihood on the line. Moderated by Olivia Rutigliano, Editor at Lit Hub and CrimeReads, and Book Editor at Grove Atlantic.
Free
Fiction
Remember the good ol’ days of college, where you turned bunnies into boys, learned to be the anti-Christ, and joined the inner circle of an amateur magician who suddenly died? No? In Mona Awad’s We Love You, Bunny, Cassandra Khaw’s The Library at Hellebore, and Kate van der Borgh’s And He Shall Appear, achieving alumni status comes at a cost that follows their protagonists after graduation. Moderated by Gabino Iglesias (House of Bone and Rain).
Free
Non-Fiction
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 history. When does the present become the past, and how does the process of writing and publishing uphold or trouble this process? Moderated by Hannah Moushabeck of Interlink Publishing.
Free
Fiction
Three graphic novelists grapple with the physical labor, mental load, and beauty of motherhood in this virtual panel. Rachel Deutsch’s The Mother traces her journey toward motherhood and egalitarian parenting while dealing with family trauma. In Mama Needs A Minute, Mary Catherine Starr speaks frankly about what she sees as the imbalance between her and her husband’s labor. Becky Barnicoat’s vivid, lively comics illuminate the difficult, funny, medically scary, and mutually exhausting aspects of pregnancy and post-partum chaos in Cry When The Baby Cries. Feminist and frank, all three authors will be joined in conversation by cartoonist and editor Whit Taylor.
Free
Fiction
Each season, BKBF presents several international debut authors whom we want to shine the light on for our audience. This year we present Korean translator and writer Jinwoo Park (Oxford Soju Club), Canadian playwright and director Aurora Stewart de Peña (Julius Julius), Ugandan-Canadian journalist Iryn Tushabe (Everything is Fine Here) , and Berlin-based writer Ella Alexander (This Sleeping Land). Moderated by Adam Vitcavage, founder of Debutiful.
Free
Fiction / International
In this virtual panel, three novelists explore dislocation, belonging, and the search for connection. Sulaiman Addonia (The Seers) chronicles the early weeks of a young Eritrean refugee in London, following the intimate and erotic lives of asylum seekers. Sarah Moss (Ripeness) reveals family secrets woven into an English woman’s migration between 1960s Italy and modern Ireland. An Yu (Sunbirth) spins a surreal tale of two sisters in an isolated village confronting a shrinking sun. Together, they explore the tensions between exile and home, and the resilience of communities under threat. Moderated by Margie Cook.
Fiction
The premise of sharing intimate details of our lives can sound daunting, but in practice — sharing one’s life on the page with honesty, thoughtful consideration, and critique — can it actually allow us to get closer to ourselves? Join us for a conversation between Melissa Febos, author of The Dry Season, and Catherine Lacey, author of The Möbius Book, as they discuss intimacy, vulnerability, the writing process, and where these topics meet. Moderated by Greg Mania (Born to Be Public).
Free
Fiction / International
How do you make sense of the hidden rifts and fractures in a country’s past? How do you read the warning signs? The Cartographer of Absences, by Mozambican writer Mia Couto (translated by David Brookshaw), unearths long-buried secrets of colonial-era atrocities. Geetanjali Shree’s Our City that Year (translated by Daisy Rockwell), explores the underground tensions—and sudden eruption of violence—between religious communities in India. Alexis Wright, one of Australia’s most visionary contemporary writers, uses the life of an Aboriginal activist in Tracker as a lens on her own country’s untold history. Moderated by Anderson Tepper, writer and curator of international literature at City of Asylum in Pittsburgh.
Free
Non-Fiction
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 puzzles and how they reflect history and community. Moderated by Natan Last (Across the Universe: The Past, Present and Future of the Crossword Puzzle).
Free
Fiction
In Jess Walter’s So Far Gone, a hermit-like retired journalist is forced to confront the radically alien beliefs of his former son-in-law, who has joined the Church of the Blessed Fire, a feeder organization for a far-right militia group. In Karen Russell’s The Antidote, the Prairie Witch is the communal balm her Nebraska townspeople need as they face the 1930s Dust Bowl, a calamity that feels as if it’s been sent by God. In Nicole Cuffy’s O Sinners!, a young journalist becomes entranced with a mysterious cult called “the nameless” led by a Vietnam War veteran as he tries to understand its origins in the aftermath of his father’s death. These books take place in a physical landscape —the American West —where religion has both shaped and reflected residents’ most deeply held beliefs about individualism, community, sin, and redemption. Moderated by critic and National Book Critics Circle board member Lauren LeBlanc.
Free
Fiction / Non-Fiction
Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon St
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 so different? What kind of boundary between art and criticism should a good critic have? Moderated by Daniel Drake, associate editor at The New York Review of Books.
Free
Fiction
In Nnedi Okorafor’s Death of the Author, Lincoln Michel’s Metallic Realms, and Fernando A. Flores’ Brother Brontë, fiction and reality blur together as narratives metastasize within the pages of the pages and so on. In Death of the Author, a woman’s debut novel finds unexpected success, but as her fame rises, she loses control of the story on earth and beyond. In Brother Brontë, the book of the same moniker becomes the beacon for an uprising in an illiterate Texan wasteland. In Metallic Realms, Michael Lincoln (not to be confused with its author) is on a mission to tell the greatest series in history throughout the universe, with the heof the mortals of a science fiction literary group in Brooklyn. Moderated by CJ Farley (Who Knows You By Heart).
Free
Fiction / International
Borough Hall Courtroom, 209 Joralemon St
Three acclaimed international authors explore the effect of silence and untold stories on their characters. In The Ghetto Within, Santiago H. Amigorena portrays a Polish emigre in Argentina haunted by the fate of his mother in the Warsaw Ghetto; Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s Sisters reveals guarded family stories that bond and fracture relationships of three sisters who believe they are cursed. Canadian novelist Madeleine Thien’s The Book of Records takes place in a time shifting refugee enclave called The Sea where stories of historical intellectual exiles intersect with a daughter’s understanding of her father’s guilt in his family’s tragic past. Memory and guilt underpin silence in these books about the power of stories told and untold. Moderated by Camille U. Adams, author of How to Be Unmothered: A Trinidadian Memoir.
Free
Fiction
History, whether in the familial or broader sense, has a way of haunting the present through memories, life choices, and beyond. In Susan Choi’s Flashlight, a father’s disappearance leaves his wife and daughter adrift as they attempt to move on, but questions about that night continue to echo. In Alejandro Heredia’s Loca, Sal and Charo strive to achieve their dreams in New York City while the ghosts of their home countries follow them. In Morgan Jerkins’ Zeal, the legacy of slavery and romantic love lingers through 150 years of one family as they go from Mississippi to New York. Moderated by Adam Dalva, President of the National Book Critics Circle.
Free
Fiction
Hear author and 5 Under 35 honoree Weike Wang as she reads from her new work, Rental House, followed by a discussion about writing in and about New York, literary mentorships, and how friendship (and writing) evolves over time. Wang is joined in conversation by Ruth Dickey, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation.
Presented in partnership with the National Book Foundation.
Free
Fiction
Join us for a conversation between two esteemed authors who explore identity, culture, class, and history through a personal lens. In her book Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People, Imani Perry examines the relationship between the color blue and its presence in Black history. In his book To Save and Destroy: Writing as an Other, Viet Thanh Nguyen contemplates his family’s history leaving Vietnam and what it means to be an outsider. Moderated by Donna Seaman (River of Books: A Life in Reading), Editor-in-Chief, Booklist.
Free
Fiction
All families are complicated, with legacy, personal choices, and societal expectations shaping or breaking the bonds that hold them together. In Jason Diamond’s The Kaplan’s Plot, a son returns home to take care of his dying mother and learns of long-buried secrets and shames from his family’s past. In Katie Kitamura’s Audition, an actress and a young playwright meet in a cafe, and as conversations unfold, questions of who they are to each other begin to arise. In Denne Michelle Norris’ When The Harvest Comes, a gay man must reckon with his relationship with his homophobic father during his wedding reception when he learns he’s been in a car accident. Moderated by Alexander Chee (How To Write An Autobiographical Novel).