On March 26, Bronx native Saraciea Fennell launched a game-changing Kickstarter campaign to bring a Book Festival to an underserved community. Within a week, the project was fully funded, backed by excited readers, organizations like Well Read Black Girl, PoC in Pub, and PEN’s Lit Crawl, as well as authors like Daniel José Older and Libba Bray. Everyone was brought together by a dream, supported by one hashtag: #TheBronxIsReading.
The Bronx has a rich literary tradition, with classics such as E.L. Doctorow’s “Billy Bathgate” and Colum McCann’s “Let the Great World Spin” set in a borough that’s been home to everyone from Edgar Allan Poe to Mary Higgins Clark.
But the borough itself is not traditionally known as a hot spot for local bibliophiles, in the fashion of areas in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
Yet over the past few years, Bronx locals have begun writing a new chapter in that story.
Mientras Brooklyn tiene el festival literario gratuito más grande de la ciudad de Nueva York, El Bronx no tiene ni una sola librería. Y es por ello que Fennell, de 29 años, quiere que el Condado de la Salsa tenga las mismas oportunidades de impulsar su larga y vibrante tradición literaria. Todo ello la animó a utilizar las redes sociales en busca de apoyo para su iniciativa y comenzar una campaña de ‘crowdfunding’ (pequeñas donaciones) para recaudar fondos y hacer realidad su proyecto.
Saraciea Fennell, a book publicist who grew up in the Webster Houses in Morrisania, founded the event so that children and adults can have access to books and first-hand experiences with authors, illustrators and publishing industry professionals.
A Bronx native is turning her dream of a holding a book festival in her borough into a reality.
Sareciea Fennell started a Kickstarter campaign to start the first-ever Bronx book festival for the area that hasn't had a bookstore since Barnes and Noble closed in 2016.
She started the campaign on March 26 and as of Sunday she had raised $30,000.
Despite its large population, the Bronx is a book store desert. Noëlle Santos is currently working to rectify this by opening The Lit. Bar, the Bronx’s only bookstore. (Barnes & Nobles was previously it’s only book store, but recently shut down.) And now another Afro-Latina is pushing to bring the New York City borough a book festival. Saraciea Fennell – a publicist in the publishing industry of Honduran ancestry – is hoping to make the Bronx Book Festival a reality in May.