With warnings of a nor’easter, the Brooklyn Book Festival had to make last-minute pivots so that the event could continue. Despite the storm's threat to attendance, turnout proved the festival’s success.
Briana Parker, co-owner of Kensington independent bookstore, The Lofty Pigeon, was emailed about the changes earlier in the week, along with the other panelists and vendors.
Panels, vendors and author signings moved indoors to various institutions near Borough Hall, from the Brooklyn Heights Library to Brooklyn Law School to St. Ann & the Holy Trinity. While foot traffic was lower than in previous years, certain panels received a full house.
The panels featured a variety of topics and speakers, from queer literary fiction (notably hosting author Marlon James, who spoke about his Booker Prize-nominated novel “The Disappearers”), to horror poetry on the transgender experience, to a literary magazine centered on nature, Orion Magazine.
“It’s just a testament to how important literature is, to how people are still showing up, and how everyone’s still willing to gather,” said Rachel Fulkerson, the development director at Orion Magazine.
After receiving the email about the panels moving indoors, the team at Orion pivoted from selling items like magazine issues and tote bags to giving them away and focusing on networking with those who were present.
But despite the flexibility, the fully canceled outdoor marketplace event was a major reason they traveled from Massachusetts to Brooklyn for the festival.
“For us, it was really more than the loss of the revenue that it might have brought in,” Fulkerson said. “It was more just the opportunity to actually communicate and engage with folks. We felt like it was a really important thing to invest in, to meet people in Brooklyn face-to-face.”
However, while the panelists and certain vendors were indoors, the festival was unable to accommodate individual writers and small presses with outdoor booths. One of these writers was professor Joni Schwartz-Chaney, who teaches the humanities at LaGuardia Community College and John Jay College.
Schwartz-Chaney’s book, “Healing Our Collective Wound: Racial Literacy and the Church,” explores racial wounding in the church and how critical race theory can provide a framework for examining it.
She expressed disappointment at losing out on networking and celebrating with other authors.
“I’ll be presenting my own work at various Brooklyn bookstores,” Schwartz-Chaney said, adding that she plans on contacting the festival organizers about participating in a larger role next year. “But this was different, because it was massive, and involves so many people and so many opportunities.”
Although the festival was unable to house the outdoor vendors, attendees like Leslie Kerby, a Boerum Hill resident who has been attending the festival since its founding in 2006, still saw the effort the festival made adjusting its original plans.
“It’s obvious they’re trying to accommodate everything,” Kerby said. “I don’t think this is holding back from people trying to see what’s going on.”
“The Brooklyn literary community is really dedicated. People really travel to come to this,” Parker said. “So they’re coming, rain or shine.”
