BP Markowitz speaks to children at the Target “Children’s Area” Kathryn Kirk

Writers and Readers Rejoice at the Brooklyn Book Festival

On September 14th at Brooklyn Borough Hall, the third annual Brooklyn Book Festival took place, encompassing over 140 authors, four stages, and huge crowds of literary Brooklynites. The line-up of authors included Joan Didion, Walter Mosley, Richard Price, Jonathan Lethem, Jonathan Franzen, Dorothy Allison, and many, many more.

“As you know,” Borough President Marty Markowitz joked as he introduced legendary New York journalist Jimmy Breslin. “Brooklyn has become home to the vast majority of authors now. And we’re thrilled.” Markowitz also spoke of Brooklyn’s great authors of the past. “Truman Capote, Carson MacCullers, James Agee, Norman Mailer – they all lived within walking distance.”

In the area around Brooklyn’s historic Borough Hall, all kinds of independent presses, publishers, and writers’ organizations set up booths. Passersby took postcards, bookmarks, and browsed the offerings of organizations as diverse as Brooklyn Zagat Guides and the Green-Wood Cemetery Historic Fund.

All the events were free, however, a limited number of tickets were released an hour before each event. Many patrons grumbled about the long lines, crowds, and the heat (the temperature neared 90 degrees), but overall the staff kept everything and everyone under control. The Brooklyn Book Festival estimated that as many as 20,000 people attended this year.

One panel featured novelist Richard Price, who wrote for HBO’s The Wire, in conversation with fellow novelist A.M. Homes, who wrote for Showtime’s The L Word. They spoke about the differing crafts of writing on the page and on the screen. “It’s amazing how little is still too much,” Price said about writing for TV. “You have to remind yourself: there’s no God. There’s no narrator.” Homes added: “You have to write lines that can function like a double word score in Scrabble. Lines that can mean two things.”

Jonathan Lethem, a Brooklyn native whose most popular novels are set in his home borough, read a section of his book Fortress of Solitude that takes place on the G train. “At first I thought it was very important for writing to be kind of universal,” Lethem said afterward in the Question and Answer period. “But then I realized the emotional charge of place-naming, of invoking things that have the pressure of reality.”

The Brooklyn Book Festival was an initiative of Brooklyn Tourism, the Brooklyn Literary Council, and Borough President Marty Markowitz. The sponsors were Target, Time Out New York, WNYC, and cultural sponsors included BAM, Brooklyn Historical Society, Brooklyn Public Library, Housing Works Bookstore Café, PEN American Center, National Book Foundation, and Words Without Borders.