Today is the Brooklyn Book Festival, the largest free literary event in New York City. This annual event began in 2006. It was the brainchild of punk rocker-turned-independent publisher Johnny Temple. He wanted a Brooklyn-focused event, and his cause was championed by Borough President Marty Markowitz, whose office runs the festival.
This year, there are hundreds of authors participating in the festival's panels and readings. Many are from Brooklyn, but they are also coming from countries all over the world, including Jamaica, Ireland, South Africa, Lebanon, Argentina, and Israel. This year's authors include Tom Wolfe, Pete Hamill, Art Spiegelman, Sharon Olds, Jamaica Kincaid, Edwidge Danticat, Colum McCann, and Sapphire. There are panels on a huge range of topics, including literary love, banned young adult books, the essay form, basketball, comics, crime fiction, the War on Terror, mothers, sex, graphic novels, cooking, dogs, and the American Dream.
The events all take place at the Brooklyn Borough Hall and on stages set up around the outdoor plaza. Last year, more than 40,000 people participated. The past week has been full of literary happenings, called "bookend events," in cafés, parks, theaters, and libraries all over the borough.
Novelist Colson Whitehead wrote: "As you may have heard, all the writers are in Brooklyn these days. [...] In fact, the physical act of moving your possessions from Manhattan to Brooklyn is now the equivalent of a two-year M.F.A. Program. [...] I have a hard time understanding all the hype. I dig it here and all, but it's just a place. It does not have magical properties. In interviews, I get asked a lot, 'What's it like to write in Brooklyn?' I get invited to do panels with other Brooklyn writers to discuss what it's like to be a writer in Brooklyn. I expect it's like writing in Manhattan, but there aren't as many tourists walking very slowly in front of you when you step out for coffee. It's like writing in Paris, but there are fewer people speaking French."
The poet Walt Whitman, who spent much of his life in Brooklyn, wrote of New York City: "There is no place like it, no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy. It lays its hand upon a man's bowels; he grows drunk with ecstasy; he grows young and full of glory, he feels that he can never die."
http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2013/09/22
