Read. Repeat.

The Bronx is Reading promotes literacy and fosters a love of reading among children, teens, and adults through multidimensional initiatives including the annual Bronx Book Festival, The Bronx is Reading Literacy Program, monthly book club, as well as our pop-up (currently closed due to COVID-19) and online bookstore, Lair of Dreams, a bookstore for the young at heart.

Save the Date: The Bronx Book Festival Returns June 2025

Stay tuned for details on the 8th annual Bronx Book Festival!

Meet the 2023-2025 Bronx Poet Laureate, Kay Bell!

Kay Bell is an Educator, Storyteller and music enthusiast. Her poetry aims to weave  the language of activism with the voice of the marginalized to confront and interrogate literary spaces of oppression. For her, writing works as a birthing floor for healing, invention, and reimagination— where the poetic voice is responsible for both blessing and bruising the inquiring reader. Through writings such as “Work Sonnet,” & “Watching You Sleep” Kay continues to give rise to poetics that challenge societal norms, promote empathy, and inspires change. Currently, she works as an Academic Advisor and Adjunct Professor at the city college of New York and can be found nurturing her plants and her two sons, in the heart of the South Bronx. 

The Bronx Poet Laureate promotes the inclusion of and passion for poetry across the Bronx, looking to inspire a new generation of writers and poets, and to educate Bronx residents about the history of poetry in our borough. The Poet Laureate serves as an ambassador for poetry and creative expression in the Bronx, committed to upholding and growing the borough's literary community.