New Chapters

The Ann Arbor Book Festival has been reinventing itself for the last several years, adding exciting components to its conference schedule. This year’s festival takes place June 17-20 and will better serve Washtenaw County by expanding programming to Ypsilanti. In addition to a literary conference on Saturday in Ann Arbor, the four day event also includes a Moonlight Book Crawl each night and a downtown street fair.

The Moonlight Book Crawl—a part of the festival that continues to grow in scope and popularity—features authors reading their work in bookstores and restaurants across the county. In addition to the many downtown Ann Arbor venues that the festival has historically featured, this year’s festival will also host authors in Ypsilanti at Beezy’s, The Ypsilanti District Library, Bona Sera Café, and Black Stone Bookstore and Cultural Center. 

“We recognize the interesting, diverse and creative community that is Ypsilanti,” said Rebecca Dunkle, President of the Board of the Ann Arbor Book Festival. “We wanted to share some of the Book Festival programming with the people in Ypsi, and in turn introduce book festival goers to the city itself.” 

The Ypsilanti events kick off at The Ypsi District Library on Wednesday with sidewalk chalk artist David Zinn and storyteller La’Ron Williams. Dunkle noted Ypsilanti’s thriving literary culture, which includes two public libraries, an active bookmobile, and Black Stone Bookstore, a newly opened independent bookstore. “We are excited to share the festival with our friends to the east,” said Dunkle. “We hope it is the beginning of a beautiful partnership.” 

Some notable authors featured in this year’s festival include Donovan Hohn, former senior editor at Harper’s and author of Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them; Rachel DeWoskin, former Chinese TV soap star and author of Foreign Babes In Beijing; and Phoebe Gloeckner, whose book Diary of a Teenage Girl was made into a film that premiered to critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival. 

 

Ann Arbor Book Festival, June 17-20.
More information about the festival and its programs, as well as updates about conference schedules,
is available at aabookfestival.org.  

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