20 Must-See Events at the Brooklyn Book Festival!
1) The Internet! It has destroyed and rebuilt life as we know it. Also writing as we know it. Also, it’s the biggest time suck ever and best procrastination tool known to man. Hear what all of these great writers have to say on the topic.
10:00 A.M. The Geek Squad.
Three authors look at how the internet impacts their writing and infiltrates their subject matter. Join Joshua Cohen (Four New Messages), Andrew Blum (Tubes) and Jessica Grose (Sad Desk Salad) in a cross genre discussion about the tangible and intangible ways of the internet. Moderated by Paul Vidich. St. Francis McCardle (180 Remsen Street)”
2) Everything is personal these days right? And nothing is sacred. But how do you expose what’s private without destroying it? We don’t know! But these authors probably have some really interesting stuff to say on the subject.
11:00 A.M. Ice or Salt: The Personal in Fiction.
W.B. Yeats wrote, “All that is personal soon rots; it must be packed in ice or salt.” Authors Siri Hustvedt (Living, Thinking, Looking), Norwegian author Karl Ove Knausgård (My Struggle) and Sheila Heti (How Should a Person Be?) will consider how writing technique—“ice or salt”—transforms the personal into art that connects to a broad audience. Moderated by Phillip Lopate. Brooklyn Borough Hall Courtroom (209 Joralemon Street)”
3) Kickstarter and comics and Molly Crabapple? Yes! This is Brooklyn self-publishing at its finest.
11:00 A.M. Comics by the People: Crowd-funding, Kickstarter, and the Future of Fan-supported Art.
Self-publishing in indie comics has a strong tradition and now Kickstarter has been called the #2 comics publisher in the US. What is the future of comics publishing? What are the benefits and challenges of directly fan-funded models? Molly Crabapple (Week in Hell), Spike Trotman (Poorcraft) and Jamie Tanner (The Black Well) discuss what works, what hasn’t and what’s to come. Moderated by Meaghan O’Connell, Kickstarter. Featuring screen projection. St. Francis Screening Room (180 Remsen Street)”
4) Brooklyn is one of the most diverse places on the planet. Identity politics are something that are always an issue of interest here. And Wesley Yang’s piece “Paper Tigers” in NY Magazine was one of the best long reads we came across last year.
12:00 P.M. The Politics of Identity—Do They Still Matter?
As America grows more diverse, “minorities” will soon be the majority and this shift in demographics affects our culture and the ways we think about it. Can—and should—we move beyond the idea of race in America? Baratunde Thurston (How to Be Black), Rebecca Walker (Black Cool) and Wesley Yang (author of the New York magazine “Paper Tigers” and a forthcoming book on Asians in America) will interrogate the stereotypes we still have of each other, both positive and negative, and examine the ways we run from and cling to various aspects of identity, race, and heritage. Moderated by Amitava Kumar. St. Francis McCardle (180 Remsen Street)”
5) Even though children in Brooklyn can sometimes be terrible (or maybe it’s just their parents?) this panel is going to be discussing the experiences of children in contemporary African literature. Fascinating.
12:00 P.M. Through the Eyes of a Child.
Join Somali-English author Nadifa Mohamed (Black Mamba Boy), Maaza Mengiste (Beneath the Lion’s Gaze) and Congo’s Emmanuel Dongala (Johnny Mad Dog and Little Boys Come from the Stars) for a conversation on contemporary African novels which explore themes of identity, memory and violence through child narrators. Moderated by Bhakti Shringarpure, Warscapes. Brooklyn Borough Hall Community Room (209 Joralemon Street)”