Literary Hill Bookfest

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Literary Hill Bookfest

The mission of the Literary Hill BookFest is to celebrate books and authors on Capitol Hill. What is the BookFest and Who Runs It? area.

The Literary Hill BookFest began as a way of turning the Literary Hill column that Karen Lyon writes for the Hill Rag into a live event. Karen’s column showcases local writers and, after more than a decade of monthly columns, it was clear that Capitol Hill seems to have an almost limitless supply. What if we could bring together some of these authors who live on or write about Capitol Hill to meet

their readers, as well as each other? Thus was born the 2011 Literary Hill BookFest. Everybody liked it so much that they encouraged us to do it again, and now we’re gearing up for Year Three. Also represented at the BookFest are the Hill’s booksellers, libraries, publishers, and other organizations with a focus on books. Because the BookFest is all about celebrating books and writing. Our ultimate goal is to make Capitol Hill a respected center for literacy and the humanities in the metropolitan D.C. And we’re well on our way. Our first BookFest attracted more than a thousand visitors; last year, an estimated 1,500 people came to Eastern Market to meet our local writers and learn more about literary services in our area. Please join us this year and make 2013 our best BookFest ever! The Literary Hill BookFest is run entirely by volunteers. If you’d like to help us out, please visit the Volunteer section of this website or write to us at [email protected].

10/06/2024

📣happening now at ! Come visit us until 3 PM today (Sunday Oct 6) for

09/26/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Suzanne Parry is a former arms control negotiator turned historical novelist. Her debut book, Lost Souls of Leningrad, was published in November 2022.

It is the first part of The Leningrad Trilogy, which focuses on the Soviet Union in World War II. The second novel in the trilogy, The Communist’s Secret, will release in August 2025. Suzanne studied Russian in Moscow and worked for the US Department of Defense.

While at the Pentagon, she helped negotiate the first international security agreement of the Gorbachev era. She has taught university, coached high school cross-country, and raised a large family. A dedicated runner, she lives in Washington, DC and Portland, OR.

suzanneparrywrites.com

09/20/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Jon Grinspan is Curator of Political History at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. His work explores the deep history – and fraught present – of American democracy. He is the award-winning author of three books: The Virgin Vote, The Age of Acrimony, and most recently Wide Awake: The Forgotten Force that Elected Lincoln and Spurred the Civil War. Grinspan is a regular contributor to the New York Times, and has been profiled in The New Yorker, The Guardian, and the Washington Post. And as a Smithsonian curator, he collects objects from contemporary political events (primaries, conventions, protests, etc), to help tell the story of America’s past and present to museum-goers in the future. #

09/18/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Liz Kleinrock (she/her) is an award winning educator and best selling author, as well as a Korean-American transracial adoptee, q***r, Jewish woman. In 2018, Liz received the Teaching Tolerance Award for Excellence in Teaching, and in 2019 delivered her TED Talk, “How to teach kids to talk about taboo topics.” In the spring of 2021, Liz released her first book, Start Here, Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in Your School Community with Heinemann Publishing, and is excited to announce the publication of four upcoming children’s books with HarperCollins. She currently works as Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging at a pre-k through middle school, and resides in Washington DC with her partner, cat, and two bunnies.

09/16/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Caroline Kusin Pritchard grew up as the youngest of four children in Dallas, TX and spent her childhood sneaking extra helpings of noodle kugel from her bubbe’s kitchen. She moved to California for college and has spent her career working across education, everything from teaching brilliant third graders to helping develop federal policy.

Caroline has her MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Some of her books for children include Gitty and Kvetch (a Tablet Magazine Best Jewish Picture Book of 2021), Where is Poppy?, What Jewish Looks Like co-written with Liz Kleinrock, the upcoming The Keeper of Stories and more!

Caroline also co-hosts the Kidlit Happy Hour podcast alongside author Joanna Ho. Caroline lives in Northern Virginia with her husband (Tavita), four kiddos (Afi, Manu, Leone and Tala) and their 120-lb dog (Misha).

www.carolinekusinpritchard.com

09/14/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Donna Hemans is the author of three novels, River Woman, Tea by the Sea, and The House of Plain Truth. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Ms. Magazine, and Crab Orchard Review, among others. Her first novel, River Woman, was named co-winner of the 2003-4 Towson University Prize for Literature, and in 2015, she won the Lignum Vitae Una Marson Award for Adult Literature for the unpublished manuscript of Tea by the Sea. She received her undergraduate degree in English and Media Studies from Fordham University and an MFA from American University, and serves on the board of The PEN/Faulkner Foundation. She lives in Maryland, and is also the owner of DC Writers Room, a co-working studio for writers based in Washington, D.C.

09/11/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Marie Arana is the prizewinning author of LatinoLand: A Portrait of America’s Largest and Least Understood Minority. Among her numerous books are the National Book Award Finalist American Chica, the novels Cellophane and Lima Nights, the biography Bolívar: American Liberator (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize) and a sweeping history of Latin America Silver, Sword, and Stone, which the American Library Association named the best nonfiction book of 2019. Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Award for Literature in 2020, Marie has been a former executive at two major publishing houses, a judge for both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, a Latin America columnist for the New York Times, a television commentator on books and publishing, and editor in chief of Book World at the Washington Post. She is also the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress. She currently serves on the boards of PEN America, PEN/Faulkner, the Authors Guild, the American Writers Museum, the Amazon Conservation Association, and the Library of Congress’s Madison Council; she has also served on the advisory council of the United States Southern Command. In 2024, at a ceremony at the Organization of American States (OAS), she will receive the Distinguished Leadership for the Americas Award from the Inter-American Dialogue.

09/10/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Philip Reari (pen name for Ari Phillips) is a Washington, D.C.-based writer and editor working to reduce industrial pollution, raise environmental awareness, and write fiction. Previously a climate reporter, his work has been published by Dissent, Grist, Huffington Post, Kyoto Journal, Mother Jones, n+1, Wired, and many others. He grew up in State College, PA, and Santa Fe, NM, and went to school in Santa Barbara, CA, and Austin, TX, before settling in D.C. Along the way he was a fellow at Tara Books in Chennai, India, for nine months and received journalism grants to report in-depth environmental stories in the Western U.S. and Australia and New Zealand.

His first book, Eat Your Damn Vegetables, was shortlisted for the Santa Fe Literary Awards. His second book, Earth Jumped Back, published by Black Rose Writing in July 2024, is a historical novel based on the 1969 Santa Barbara oil spill, which helped catalyze the modern environmental movement, and the ensuing clash between students, campus authorities, and the police. Three-time Edgar Award-winner and New York Times Bestselling Author T. Jefferson Parker called it “an engaging time-travel yarn…with light and spirited prose.”
www.philipreari.com

09/04/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Ginger Park is an award-winning author of many books for kids and adults that reflect her Korean heritage. Her books have been published in five languages.

Awards for Ginger’s children’s books include: The International Reading Association’s Children’s Book Award, IRA-CBC Teachers’ Choice Award, Notable Books for a Global Society Award, Capitol Choices Book Award, Bank Street College Book Award, A Junior Library Guild Selection, Paterson Prize Book for Young Readers, Rutgers University “Top Five” Book Award, Joan G. Sugarman Award, among others.

The Administrative Offices of the U.S. Courts & federal judiciary book council honored THE HUNDRED CHOICES DEPARTMENT STORE as their 2024 AAPI Heritage Month book selection, and Ginger as their feature author.

Ginger is delighted to announce that THE HUNDRED CHOICES DEPARTMENT STORE was recently translated and published in South Korea by Hello Robin Books. The book is a Kyobo Summer Reading Recommendation and a YES24 Youth Selection.
Forthcoming books: SUKA’S FARM (Spring 2024) and BINNA’S BIRTHDAY (Fall 2025).

When Ginger isn’t writing, you can find her at her sweet shop, Chocolate Chocolate, in downtown Washington, DC, ‘breaking chocolate’ with her beloved customers.

09/03/2024

🗣MEET THE AUTHORS of 2024 Literary Hill Bookfest | October 6, 2024 11 AM - 3 PM at Eastern Market 📖

Local author Frances Park is the Korean American author of fourteen highly-praised books – novels, memoirs, and co-authored children’s books – published in seven languages. Her just-released novel Blue Rice (Vine Leaves Press/2024) opens in post-war South Korea and ends in 1960s Washington, DC and Alexandria, Virginia.

Recent works include her re-issued novel The Summer My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon (Heliotrope Books/2023), and her memoir That Lonely Spell (Heliotrope Books/2022), both reflecting an identity born of two worlds. Penguin Random House SEA will be publishing her novel Ahn Love in 2026. Her personal essays have appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine, AARP Magazine, and many more. She earned a Notable in The Best American Essays 2017.
Co-authored with sister Ginger, her award-winning children’s books include their latest, Grandpa’s Scroll (Albert Whitman/2024). Forthcoming is Suka’s Farm (Albert Whitman/ 2025), a story portraying an unlikely friendship between a starving Korean boy and a Japanese farmer during the Occupation, and Binna’s Birthday (Albert Whitman/2026). Accolades include the International Reading Association medal, the Joan G. Sugarman Award, The Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, Books for a Global Society, and Parents’ Choice, to name a few.

Frances has been interviewed on National Public Radio, Voice of America, Radio Free Asia, CNN, and Good Morning America. She has spoken at the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian, the Korean Embassy, American University, George Mason University and many schools in northern Virginia.

Along with writing, she and her sister founded and have co-owned the legendary chocolate boutique known as Chocolate Chocolate in downtown Washington, DC since 1984.

Visit Frances at www.parksisters.com.

Address

Capitol Hill
Washington D.C., DC
20003

Opening Hours

11am - 3pm

Telephone

+12025467231

Website

http://www.literaryhillbookfest.org/

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