First-Ever Brighton Heights Book Fair Will Kick Off This July
The reading bazaar aims to promote both literacy and community.
PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER | RAVEN’S QUILL, A MOBILE BOOKSTORE, WILL BE IN ATTENDANCE AT THE BRIGHTON HEIGHTS BOOK FAIR
Anne Perri Cole is a member of one of the several book clubs located in the Brighton Heights neighborhood. This summer, Perri Cole and other book club members decided to start a new chapter by organizing the Brighton Heights Book fair.
“It’s the first event of its kind in Brighton Heights,” Perri Cole says. “It’s a really great way to have a community to talk about books and promote literacy and spend time together doing something we love.”
The inaugural book fair will take place on Saturday, July 18 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Legion Park. The event is free to all of Pittsburgh’s book lovers. The festival will have an activity section and Kids Zone for children, where they can make their own books, create bookmarks, decorate the cover of a book and have an opportunity to snap a picture at the photo booth.
It will also have more than 20 community resource tables, local vendors and literary organizations like Raven’s Quill, a local romantasy themed mobile bookstore, and Charmed Chapters Co., which makes handmade custom charm bookmarks.
The event will offer a silent reading party (think silent disco but for books) and a chance to meet local authors like Francesa Dabecco, coauthor of “100 Things to Do in Pittsburgh Before You Die.” The book fair will also have a book club discussion on how to start your very own group.
“The centerpiece of the event is our book swap,” Peri Cole says. “We’ll have several hundred books for adults and kids where people can come and take a book or leave a book if they want, but really, take a book — we’ve got a lot.”
Perri Cole adds that the literacy fair was inspired by the Pittsburgh Book Festival hosted by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and the Summer Series that takes place in Legion Park each year.
“[The Summer Series has] been such a success and it’s brought out the community in different ways to listen to music and shop from local vendors, and we really love attending that,” she says. “So this is the chance to do something similar that is specifically for people who love books.”
With more than 150 people planning to attend on Facebook, Perri Cole hopes that the Brighton HeightsBook Fair will become a cherished neighborhood tradition for years to come.
“We’re all connecting with each other when reading books is a solitary activity,” she says.
