For a second year running, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw will host the annual Leimert Park Village Book Fair this Saturday, featuring an exclusive panel discussion with writers from Fox’s hit television show “Empire”, along with a classic car display, a vintage typewriter collection and a special screening of “The Color Purple”.
Named “One of LA’s 5 Best Annual Book Festivals”, the 9th Annual Leimert Park Village Book Fair (LPVBF) will honor the literary legacy of African-Americans with panel discussions, book readings and signings, interviews, film screenings, special exhibitions, children’s activities, awards and musical performances. More than 100 authors will be in attendance. The event will take place Saturday, August 1 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. on the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw. The event will be free and open to the public.
The “Empire” panel, which will start at 2 p.m.,will feature writer and producer Attica Locke (Black Water Rising, Pleasantville) with several other esteemed writers from the show, including Joshua Allen (Hostages), Eric Haywood (Private Practice, Soul Food and Hawaii), JaNeika and JaSheika James (Desperate Housewives, Dexter, Seinfeld, Scrubs) and Carlito Rodriguez (The Leftovers). Acclaimed author and film-maker Tananarive Due (My Soul to Keep, The Living Blood, Blood Colony) will moderate the panel.
The theme of this year’s fair is “The 1980s: The Decade That Made Us”; the event will include a display of classic cars from that decade curated by the Petersen Automotive Museum, a vinyl album display curated by Amoeba Music, and a collection of 80s vintage toys. The fair will also host “Writers and Their Typewriters,” an exhibition that will showcase Ernest Hemingway’s personal typewriter from Steve Soboroff’s personal collection, among others. Finally, an exhibit from the Cornell University Hip Hop Collection, entitled “Hip Hop Revolution, Roots Rhythm & Rage”, will display images of early hip-hop artists and musicians. Returning Chairpersons, Dr. Bernard W. and Shirley Kinsey are renowned art collectors, philanthropists, and historians. Their coffee table art book, The Kinsey Collection: Shared Treasures of Bernard and Shirley Kinsey – Where Art and History Intersect, will be available at the book fair.
Celebrity authors, from a variety of genres, also in attendance include: Actress Garcelle Beauvais and Sebastian A. Jones (I am mixed, I am Awesome); former model and author Kathleen Bradley (Backstage at the Price is Right: Memoirs of a Barker Beauty); attorney and award-winning author Pamela Samuels Young (Anybody’s Daughter, In Firm Pursuit, Murder on the Down Low); actress Erika Alexander and husband, screenwriter Tony Puryear (Concrete Park) and celebrity chefs Alice Randall and Caroline Randall Williams (Soul Food Love: Healthy Recipes Inspired by One Hundred Years of Cooking in a Black Family ).
LPVBF will also commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Watts Riots with a panel discussion on its main stage at 11:30 a.m. Before the main event this weekend, the LPVBF is also hosting in collaboration with the Writers Guild of America West / Committee of Black Writers & Pan African Film Festival, a special screening celebrating the 30th anniversary of the iconic film adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1983 Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning book, The Color Purple. The screening will be held on Thursday, July 30th at BHC Rave Cinemas.
“With the support of our festival partner, Baldwin Hills Crenshaw, our sponsors and numerous supporters, we are able to offer a full literary experience for the community” said LPVBF Producer and Founder Cynthia E. Exum.
“We are thrilled to host the Leimert Park Village Book Fair for the second time, and honored this outstanding event has found its home in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Community,” said Rachel Freeman, General Manager for Baldwin Hills Crenshaw. “This event is part of our ongoing commitment to bring high-quality activities to our neighborhood. And we hope the entire community will come out and enjoy this event, where there really will be something for everyone to enjoy!”
For more information about the Leimert Park Village Book Fair, please visit http://www.leimertparkbookfair.com.
