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You're Invited: An Anniversary Party Celebrating 5 Years in Brooklyn

Saturday, 11:00 am EDT - 8:00 pm EDT April 27, 2024

The Center for Fiction

If this were a birthday party, we’d toast to The Center for Fiction turning 203 years old as a literary organization (founded in 1821 as the Mercantile Library), but today we’re honoring an important anniversary: it’s been five years since we opened our space in Brooklyn! We couldn’t have made it this far without our growing community of readers and writers, so we wanted to dedicate Independent Bookstore Day to a celebration of our time together. Here’s what we have in store:

  • Our famous “Take What You Can Carry” sale returns: Buy a tote bag and fill it with as many books from our sale cart as you can fit!
  • Anyone who makes a purchase from the Bookstore ($10 and up) gets a free cupcake while supplies last.
  • We’re hosting an Open House from 12–5pm: Our second-floor Members Lounge, Reading Room, and Terrace will be open to the public. It’s the perfect place to bring your new books, a drink from the Café & Bar, and friends new and old! We’ll lead tours throughout the day for anyone interested in learning more about Membership.
  • Members of The Center and Loyalty Members of the Bookstore will have an exclusive all-day Happy Hour at the Café & Bar (become a member at the Open House to gain access)!
  • The Brooklyn Bookstore Crawl After Party, hosted by author Mahogany L. Browne, will be from 5–7pm in the auditorium. Bring your passport from the week-long borough-wide Bookstore Crawl as admission and receive a raffle ticket for every stamp to win door prizes from participating bookstores!

Thank you for making these past five years celebrating storytelling so special.

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Featuring

  • IMG_5057 - Celeste Kaufman Large

    Mahogany L. Brown

    Mahogany L. Brown

    Mahogany L. Browne, a Kennedy Center’s Next 50 fellow, is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator. Browne received fellowships from All Arts, Arts for Justice, Air Serenbe, Baldwin for the Arts, Cave Canem, Poets House, Mellon Research, Rauschenberg, & Wesleyan University. Browne’s books include Vinyl Moon, Chlorine Sky (optioned for Steppenwolf Theater), Black Girl Magic, and banned books Woke: A Young Poet’s Call to Justice and Woke Baby. Founder of the diverse lit initiative Woke Baby Book Fair, Browne currently tours Chrome Valley (highlighted in Publishers Weekly and the New York Times) and is the 2024 Paterson Poetry Prize winner. She is the inaugural poet-in-residence at the Lincoln Center and works on her first adult fiction in Brooklyn, New York.