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The Harlem Book Fair
will celebrate its 6th Anniversary this year with an expanded
event on July 24th which is expected to draw more than 40,000
people. The Fair, the largest of its kind, will fill two
avenue-long blocks along West 135th Street, between Fifth Avenue
and Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. Boulevard. The Fair will offer
books, food, story-telling, readings, book-signings and
opportunities to meet and greet authors on four stages that will
feature spoken word poets, celebrities and music throughout the
day. The Harlem Book Fair is also launching its first ever
Christian Books Pavilion and Presentation Stage, in response to
the ever- growing market of African American Christian book
readers.
More than 100 publishers will exhibit and 150 African American
authors are expected to attend, including best selling authors
Zane, Quincy Troupe, Amiri Baraka, Sonia Sanchez, Michael Eric
Dyson, Ishmael Reed, J. L. King (On the Down Low), Michael
Baisden, Ossie Davis, Dr. Rev. Arlene Churn, Juan Williams,
Ellis Cose, Howard French, Earl Sewell, Carl Weber, Vickie
Stringer, Shannon Holmes, Christopher John Farley, Rebecca
Carrol, Ray Winbush, Susan Fales- Hill, Colin Channer, Kenji
Jasper, Nikki Turner, Lynnette Khalfani, Nina Foxx, Tia Wiliams,
Darren Coleman, and Tonya Lee and Crystal McCrary.
"The Harlem Book Fair celebrates African American culture,
promotes literacy, and honors our community," said Max
Rodriguez, Founder of QBR The Black Book Review, the parent
organization of The Harlem Book Fair. "It has now become an
event of national importance that had its beginnings and still
has its heart in Harlem."
The prestigious Wheatley Book Awards, one of the events
sponsored in conjunction with the Fair, will be given Friday,
July 23rd, at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black
Culture. This year Maya Angelou, Chinua Achebe, Maryse Conde,
and Terry McMillan will be honored. Quincy Troupe, former Poet
Laureate of California, and actress Lynn Whitfield, who received
an NAACP Image Award nomination for her work in Oprah Winfrey
Presents: The Wedding, will co-host.
The Fair will also host 15 panel discussions to be held at the
Schomburg Center, the Countee Cullen library, Harlem Hospital,
the Metropolitan A.M.E. Auditorium, and other locations
throughout the community. Topics will include The Rise and Fall
of American Soul, featuring George Wein and Hugh Masakela;
Street Fiction, with Shannon Holmes; and The Art of the Cover,
featuring artist Synthia Saint James, designer of the Harlem
Book Fair 2004 logo.
The event is free to the public and is sponsored by JPMorgan/Chase,
BankOne, Random House, C-Span, Time Warner Book Group,
HarperCollins Publishers, BET Books, Black Expressions,
Simon&Schuster, John Wiley & Sons, the Perseus Book Group, the
Penguin Group (USA), Harlem UMEZ (Upper Manhattan Empowerment
Zone) and NYSCA (New York State Council on the Arts).
For more information about the Fair, and a complete schedule of
events, go to
http://www.qbr.com/.
Source: Harlem Book Fair
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