Brooklyn Book Festival

Brooklyn Book Festival is a free-of-charge annual event for all book lovers. Thousands of people attended the festival to meet writers from all across the globe, shop for books, and discuss literature.

The festival had multiple types of events for everybody: virtual meetings, in-person conferences, and, of course, book markets. Writers of all genres, from prose to poetry, from cookbooks to graphic novels attended the festival to share their experiences.

What impressed me were the topics covered in the presentations. A big chunk of them focuses on current issues like climate change, the meaning of AI, LGBTQ, and politics. Some discussed poetry, comic books, or works of a particular author.

I had a chance to visit the lecture focused on climate change and ecology fiction “True Eco-Terror: Writing Frightful Economic And Ecological Dystopias And Disasters”. Three authors, Damir Salkovic, Theo Gangi, and Jeffrey Krizman shared their experience in book writing and offered some insights on the possible future of our world. It was very interesting to hear the experiences of each one of the authors and get a better perspective on the climate change issue.

Even though parts of the lecture were pretty depressing, making me think that there is no way for our world to prosper, somehow the authors made me come out of the lecture with hope for a better future. And part of the reason for that was the audience. I could tell attendees were interested in the topic. Their questions at the end of the lecture were thoughtful and deep, and I thought that, for as long as there are people who care, the world has hope.

And even though I was very excited about the lecture, there was one thing I was waiting for even more: on Sunday, October 1, there was a festival day, the culmination of the whole 9-day event. During the day, authors signed books and host lectures. But most importantly, there was a book market, which is supposedly the largest book market in the Northeast.

The festival is a gem for all book lovers. Anyone can visit it completely free of charge (except for buying new books, of course), and it is a great way to find new friends in the book community!

Article by Mary Zakharova