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Brooklyn Book Festival Preview

1. The view from Borough Hall. Gorgeous! 2. This is what a “multimedia room” crowded with bookish people looks like.

Yesterday Brooklyn’s Borough Hall hosted the reception for the Brooklyn Bookfest Preview. After checking in, we were ushered into something called the multimedia room because “that’s where the alcohol is.” After socializing for a bit, borough president Marty Markowitz took the stage to tell us about the upcoming bookfest, which will take place September 15–18.

1. Marty being Marty. 2. We find images of our latest cover everywhere, and not just in our own living rooms. Painting by Branden Charles Wallace.

Apparently events are being planned not just at Borough Hall, but will also include literary-themed events called “bookends,” which will take place at venues like Brooklyn Bowl, Brooklyn Winery, and various independent bookstores. Markowitz continued to spout forth adorable Markowitzisms, which included:

– his version of English (Brooklynese) is the king’s English, because we are Kings County, after all.

– the residents in South Brooklyn are not chopped liver, and Brooklyn Bookfest sponsor AT&T would make sure that they were wi-fi enabled.

– Manhattan made a real “boo boo boo” by not having the Bookfest in their borough.

– the name of Akashic Books’ #1 bestseller, Go The Fuck to Sleep, is so Brooklyn that he couldn’t say it out loud.

– this is the sixth year of the Bookfest, and will be the best and biggest line-up yet.

After a few brief words from representatives from the likes of sponsors such as AT&T and The New York Times, the writers that would be featured at the Bookfest were announced. A full list of writers is available here, but here are some highlights:

Joyce Carol Oates, Jennifer Egan, Sam Lipsyte, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Colson Whitehead, A.M. Homes, David Rakoff, Russell Banks, Karen Russell.

–Julia Jackson writes fiction and is a regular contributor to Electric Dish. She has an MFA from Brooklyn College.

1. Red Lemonade’s Richard Nash, with his daughter Sophia. Note Nash’s styin’ tiger-striped sunglasses on the bench. 2. Kate Travers, who is doing the media for the Bookfest, & Johnny Temple of Akashic Books.

1. Photo op! The people involved with putting together the Bookfest. 2. Summer Smith, a publicity manager at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, & Steve, of McNally Jackson Books.