If you represent a small presses, major publisher, independent bookstore, or nonprofit cultural organization with an interest in literacy, the deadline to register as an exhibitor at the 2009 Free Library Festival is Friday, March 6! Space is limited, and booths are sold on a first come, first served basis. Reserve your space today by returning your completed Exhibitor Application & Contract! (Exhibitor booths at the 2007 and 2008 festivals sold-out.)

SATURDAY ONLY AUTHOR PACKAGES ARE SOLD-OUT*

*Please note that Author Exhibitor Packages are still available for Sunday Only or for the Full Weekend.

Each week, we will share some of the fantastic authors, performers, and literary exhibitors scheduled to appear at this year's fest!

 Highlights for Adults

Solomon Jones | Payback
Sunday, April 19, Skyline Salon

Solomon Jones is the Essence bestselling author of the critically acclaimed novels C.R.E.A.M., Ride Or Die, The Bridge, and Pipe Dream. A columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, he is also the author of Keeping Up With the Jones: Marriage, Family and Life... Unplugged. A former adjunct professor at Temple University's College of Liberal Arts, Jones also serves on the board of the Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness. His new novel, Payback, is a sequel to C.R.E.A.M.

 Fun for the Family

Follow the Drinking Gourd: "On the Freedom Trail"
Sunday, April 19, Target Children's Stage

Celebrating the vitality of the African-American musical experience, Follow the Drinking Gourd is a musical trio named for a song used to guide slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Combining powerful narrative with compelling music, singers Shannon Hunt and Ivan Woods and pianist Diane Goldsmith perform their way through African-American history in "On the Freedom Trail," using musical styles such as spiritual and ragtime, as well as excerpts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Follow the Drinking Gourd has appeared to rave reviews at venues, including Princeton's Paul Robeson Center for the Arts and the African American Museum in Philadelphia.
 

Exhibitor Spotlight
The Free Library Festival's Street Fair & Literary Marketplace is the place for readers to discover new writers and explore what's new in the literary world!

Exhibitors! The deadline to register is Friday, March 6, 2009. For more information and the application, click here.

The Gettysburg Review
Recognized as one of the country's premier journals, The Gettysburg Review publishes short stories, poems, and essays in quarterly issues that celebrate the collected American experience. Many pieces first published in the journal have found their way into prize anthologies such as Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, Best American Poetry, and Best American Essays. The journal has won numerous awards, including the Best New Journal and four Best Journal Design Awards, as well as a PEN/Nora Magid Award for Excellence in editing.

Temple University Press
Publisher of regional, general interest, and academic books
From scholarly books for the global university community to locally-focused titles about Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley, Temple University Press publishes books that encourage readers to gain new perspectives on the world and a greater understanding of the social, cultural, and political forces that unite and divide us. Featured titles at the Free Library Festival will include Restructuring the Philadelphia Region by Carolyn Adams, David Bartelt, David Elesh and Ira Goldstein; Pictures from a Drawer by Bruce Jackson, and Animals at Play by Marc Bekoff.

Curtis Adams | The Durer Hypothesis, Volume 1
The Durer Hypothesis, Volume 1 documents independent art historian Curtis Adams's investigation of a plate he found at a Pennsylvania flea market that may be an original artifact from the 16th century featuring artist Albrecht Durer's metal engraving The Night, Death and the Devil. Adams underwent more than five years of research, interviews, and appraisals with historians and scientists in an effort to prove the plate's authenticity, unlocking a world of explanations.

Each week, we will share some of the fantastic authors, performers, and literary exhibitors scheduled to appear at this year's fest!

Highlights for Adults

Joe Queenan | Closing Time: A Memoir
Sunday, April 19, Skyline Salon

Philadelphian Joe Queenan is a humorist, critic, and author whose witty and acerbic writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Rolling Stone, Esquire, and the New York Times. Queenan, who has hosted a number of radio programs for the BBC, is also the author of seven books including Queenan Country and Balsamic Dreams. By turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Queenan's memoir Closing Time recounts his Irish Catholic upbringing in a family dominated by his erratic father in a 1960's Philadelphia housing project.

First Person StorySlam: Philly vs. Chicago

Saturday, April 18, Bank of America Main Stage 

It's the melee on the Parkway, the fracas at the Free Library Festival! In an unprecedented inter-city Story Slam spectacular, five challengers from Chicago will battle five of the Philadelphia's First Person StorySlam winners to determine which is the more storied city. Storytellers each have five minutes to tell their true stories; the theme: "Mortified." The winner of this contest will be invited to perform at the 2009 First Person Festival in November. Ryan T. Barlow, the 2008 Grand Slam winner, will represent Philly alongside four winning storytellers from upcoming StorySlam events (details on the First Person Festival website). They are already talking about it in Chicago

Exhibitor Spotlight
The Free Library Festival's Street Fair & Literary Marketplace is the place for readers to discover new writers and explore what's new in the literary world!

The deadline to register as an exhibitor is Friday, March 6, 2009. For more information and the application, click here.

Philadelphia Great Books Council

Built on a belief in self-education and life-long learning, the Great Books Foundation promotes reading, thinking, and the sharing of ideas for people of all ages, approaching great literature through a process called "Shared Inquiry." Roughly 850 book groups throughout the United States and abroad are affiliated with the Great Books Foundation, and twelve regional councils--including the Philadelphia Great Books Council--help coordinate book discussion events in their region.

University of Pennsylvania Press
Publishing in Philadelphia Since 1890 
The University of Pennsylvania Press is particularly well known for its books in American history, in European history and literary studies, in studio arts, and on international human rights issues. The Press has also gained a leading position in landscape architecture and garden history. Books published by the Press regularly win prizes in their fields of scholarship and others successfully make the work of scholars and researchers accessible to readers beyond the academic world.

Jim Zervanos | Love Park

In Jim Zervanos's debut novel Love Park, 26-year-old Peter Pappas struggles to become an adult in his childhood home. Surrounded by his parents' Greek Orthodox beliefs, Peter tests the boundaries of his religious faith and his family's traditions by experimenting in an affair with a widowed woman. Love Park has been called "a love letter to Philadelphia" by Philadelphia magazine's Larry Platt and "a tribute to the forgiveness and the power of brotherly love" by author Eleni N. Gage.

Highlights for Adults
Kristin Chenoweth | A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages
Saturday, April 18, Bank of America Main Stage
Tony Award-winning actress Kristin Chenoweth originated the role of Glinda the Good Witch in the hit Broadway musical Wicked and was nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress for her work in Pushing Daisies, ABC's Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated show. In addition, she has recorded three albums--A Lovely Way to Spend Christmas, Let Yourself Go, and As I Am--and sang for a sold-out crowd at the Metropolitan Opera House. In A Little Bit Wicked, Chenoweth discusses the challenges she's faced balancing faith, family, private life, and her public persona.

Kevin Young | Dear Darkness
Sunday, April 19, Independence Foundation Poet's Corner
National Book Award finalist Kevin Young is "tender, sassy, and just plain cool," according to poet Billy Collins, and Publisher's Weekly calls him "perhaps the most prominent African American poet of his generation." Inspired by the blues and the history of Black America, Young's poems appear in the New Yorker and the Paris Review, and he is the author of six books of poetry, including Jelly Roll: A Blues, For the Confederate Dead, and his latest collection, Dear Darkness.

Fun for the Family
Susan Orlean | Lazy Little Loafers
Saturday, April 18, Children's Story Hour Room
Deemed "one of the wittiest new-baby-in-the-family books of recent years" by Publisher's Weekly, Susan Orlean's first children's book Lazy Little Loafers began as a humor piece for the New Yorker, where she serves as a staff writer. A bestselling author of nonfiction books for adults, Orlean's books include The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup and The Orchid Thief, which was adapted into the Oscar-nominated film Adaptation.

Baby Loves Salsa
Sunday, April 19, Target Children's Stage
Featuring some of the brightest stars in contemporary salsa music--including singer Jose Conde and Grammy-winning producer Aaron "Luis" Levinson--Baby Loves Salsa is a group of kittens and puppies (gattitos y perritos) from New York City who become the best salsa band in the land! Part of the Baby Loves Music family, which includes Baby Loves Jazz, Baby Loves Hip Hop, and Baby Loves Disco, Baby Loves Salsa--called "the best musical value of the season" by the Parents Music Council--helps kids learn about salsa music and Spanish in a way in which parents and children can enjoy together.

Exhibitor Spotlight
Middle Atlantic Press - #1 For Regional Books
Regional publishing company Middle Atlantic Press strives to publish quality nonfiction books for the residents of the Mid-Atlantic region and the East Coast. Established more than thirty years ago, Middle Atlantic Press offers many new titles and a strong backlist, which includes regional bestseller The Jersey Devil and national bestseller The Great Philadelphia Fan Book.

Mary Jane Hurley Brant | When Every Day Matters: A Mother's Memoir on Love, Loss and Life
A certified group psychotherapist, Mary Jane Hurley Brant has worked with hundreds of people to bring meaning into their lives. "Wistful, deeply personal, [and] at times funny" (Philadelphia Inquirer), When Every Day Matters chronicles Brant's first year back to life after the death of her daughter from brain cancer. Proceeds from her book will be shared with her late daughter's foundation Katie's Kids for the Cure.

Highlights for Adults...

Jane Hamilton | Laura Rider's Masterpiece
Sunday, April 19, Bank of America Main Stage
Acclaimed novelist Jane Hamilton is the author of the PEN/Hemingway Award winner The Book of Ruth and the New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Map of the World, both of which selected for Oprah's Book Club. The Washington Post chose her novel When Madeline Was Young as a Best Book of 2006. In her new book, Laura Rider's Masterpiece, Le Divorce meets The Love Letter as Hamilton concocts a comedic tale of sex, manipulation, and delusions of grandeur in small town America.

Fun for the Family...

David Wiesner | Flotsam
Saturday, April 18, Children's Story Hour Room
Three of David Wiesner's picture books became instant classics when they won the prestigious Caldecott Medal: Tuesday, The Three Pigs, and most recently, Flotsam, also a New York Times bestseller. He is only the second person in the award's history to win it three times! Illustrator of more than 20 award-winning books for young readers, Wiesner created the original artwork for the Free Library's inaugural Philadelphia Book Festival in 2007.

Trout Fishing in America
Saturday, April 18, Target Children's Stage
The long-standing musical partnership between bassist Keith Grimwood and guitarist Ezra Idlet, Trout Fishing in America is “some of the most lyrically creative, musically sophisticated, vocally muscular music-makers in the family music business,” according to the Los Angeles Times. They have been nominated four times for a Grammy Award, for their albums inFINity (2001), Merry Fishes to All (2004), My Best Day (2006), and most recently, Big Round World (2008). Trout Fishing is also the recipient of multiple Parent's Choice Awards and three National Indie Awards.

Featured Festival Exhibitors...

Philadelphia Museum of Art - Publisher of the Scholarly Books and Catalogues of the Philadelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art seeks to preserve, enhance, interpret, and extend the reach of its great collections and the field of visual arts to a diverse audience as a source of delight, illumination, and lifelong learning. A new and interactive way for children and their parents to approach and appreciate the museum's collections, A is for Art Museum, by first-time authors Katy Friedland and Marla K. Shoemaker, is a “playful journey through the museum's collections... fun for kids and adults alike.” (Mainline)

Mayte Picco-Kline | Wholeness in Living: Kindling the Inner Light
Mayte Picco-Kline is an organizational psychologist dedicated to helping people reach their potential through finding inner peace. She has taught at the United Nations' University for Peace and at seminars worldwide. Her book, Wholeness in Living, offers guiding affirmations that celebrate life and the joy experienced when, as Picco-Kline says, “a receptive heart is filled with hope, peace, love, beauty, and understanding.”

Interested in exhibiting at the Festival? Click here! Deadline to register is Friday, March 6, 2009!