inTown: Literary Hill BookFest on May 6th at Eastern Market
The 2nd Literary Hill BookFest will be staged on Saturday, May 6th from 11am to 3pm in the North Hall of Eastern Market. Following on last year’s great success, the event will showcase close to 30 authors who call the historic Capitol Hill neighborhood home. Admission is free.
Organizers point out that at a time when so many talk in such dismal tones about the future of the book, here we have a new book festival. It “helps to nail the notion that books have had their day; underlines the lure that the printed word still retains.”
The BookFest is inspired by the “Literary Hill” column that appears each month in the Hill Rag, the news-magazine that serves the Capitol Hill community. The writer of the column, Karen Lyon, is the main-force behind the BookFest. Karen – who is assistant to the director of the Folger Shakespeare Library and managing editor of Folger Magazine – has put the spotlight, for the last 11 years, on the rich and diverse literary talent that, like her, resides on The Hill. inReads is proud to feature Karen’s recent review of The Richmond Theater Fire by festival author Meredith Henne Baker.
The featured authors run the gamut, with award-winning crime and thriller writers, a Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times best-sellers. The books include compelling biographies; fascinating histories of events, life-style trends and such diverse topics as, whiskey, punks, family life and the Potomac. The authors will interact one-on-one with visitors to the BookFest and several of them will give talks. A special feature will be a children’s’ corner, with readings and book-related crafts.
The establishment of the BookFest – which it is hoped will become an annual event – has been enthusiastically welcomed by the Library of Congress, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the two DC public libraries that serve the community. All will be participants, along with other local resources for writers and readers, such as book-sellers and publishers.
As Karen Lyon says: “Capitol Hill has a never-ending supply of writers. The Literary Hill BookFest is a way of paying homage to them and encouraging others to join their ranks.”
