Free Library Festival

The Philadelphia Free Library will host more than 50 authors on-stage at the 2010 Free Library Festival, including talk show host Chelsea Handler, Sapphire--author of Push, basis for the award-winning film Precious, Oprah Winfrey biographer Kitty Kelley, pop singer/songwriter Tommy James, and many more.

Stop by the free event to celebrate your love of books and visit Philadelphia Stories at Booth #18. We'll also be hosting a special free reading nearby at the Belgian Cafe on Saturday, from 1:30-2:30. Hear readers from our spring issue as well as other local authors -- and enjoy a special Philadelphia Stories drink special! 

Readers include:

Sylvie Beauvais (The Baby): Sylvie's novella, Fly, Rapunzel was a finalist in Low Fidelity Press's 2006 Novella Award Contest. 

Marguerite McGlinn Fiction Prize Winner Katherine Hill (The Work Boyfriend): Katherine Hill has been published in Word Riot, San Francisco Chronicle, Bookforum, and more. She is currently at work on a novel.

Debra Leigh Scott is a writer, playwright, dramaturg, arts administrator and educator.  Her collection, Other Likely Stories, is forthcoming in April 2010.  She’s Founding Director of Hidden River Arts , which celebrates and supports creative and performing artists, and is now Founding Editor-in-Chief of  Hidden River Publishing, a brand new micro-publisher here in Philadelphia.  

Mitchell Sommers (Bando) is an attorney practicing consumer bankruptcy law in Lancaster, PA. He has had op-eds published in numerous Pennsylvania newspapers.

Jenny Lentz (How to Get Fired) is a transplanted Southerner residing in Philadelphia. Her  fiction has won awards from The Baltimore Review, Writer's Digest, Writers Notes Magazine, Main Street Rag, Spire Magazine, and The New Writer, among others, and her writing has been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies.  She holds a BA in English and Creative Writing from Bryn Mawr College.

Brian Patrick Heston (Crow in Puddle) grew up in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. He has a Master’s in English and Poetry from the University of New Hampshire and an MFA in Fiction from George Mason University. His poetry has appeared in Pennsylvania English, Confrontation, Slipstream, Cake Train, Poetry Southeast, West Branch, The Bitter Oleander, Many Mountains Moving, Philadelphia Stories, Portland Review, Gargoyle, and is upcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly and 5 A.M. He currently is an MFA candidate in Poetry at Rutgers University in Camden New Jersey and is an Assistant Editor with Many Mountains Moving Press.

Barry Dinerman's (The Kiss Me Stone) recent fiction has appeared in Lullwater Review (Emory University).  His plays have been staged on the West Coast by A Contemporary Theater and on the East Coast by a variety of companies.  The Edward Albee Foundation helped to support many projects.  He is a freelance editor and teaches non-credit courses in creative writing at Temple University Fort Washington.