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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.
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On Saturday and Sunday, April 18 and 19, 2009, the Free Library hosted its third annual Free Library Festival. Drawing our largest crowd to date--estimated at 35,000!--the Festival presented more than 50 authors, performers, and programs, and 80 exhibitors at the Street Fair and Literary Marketplace. Thanks to our Festival Sponsors, the City of Philadelphia, and the Fairmount Park Commission, to the Free Library staff, and to our more than 200 dedicated Festival Volunteers for another fantastic fest! );)
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