ASBURY PARK, NJ – Something new and entirely different will happen in Asbury Park on Saturday, April 20, 2013 from 1 – 4:00 p.m.
The first ever Asbury Park Bookfest will take place beginning at The Shoppes at the Arcade, 658 Cookman Avenue and other venues throughout the downtown like LUSH fine wine & spirits, Paranormal Books & Curiosities and art629 Gallery. They will all host over 30 authors who will be descending on the city for the Asbury Park Bookfest, organized by the online literary magazine AsburyPulp.com, the independent cinema The ShowRoom and words! Bookstore. The BookFest is FREE to attend.
The 30+ authors are almost entirely from New Jersey. They include the Jersey Shore’s best-selling crime novelist, Wallace Stroby (The Barbed Wire Kiss, Kings of Midnight); Children’s book sensation, Justin Drazer of Fair Haven (Albert and the Amazing Pillow Monsters); Monmouth University’s Jake Hinkson (Hell on Church Street, The Posthumous Man); and the writers of respected regional publishing house, Plexus Publishing, Inc. of Medford, NJ in addition to independent and self-published authors.
Plexus Publishing will be bringing six authors to the Asbury Park Bookfest, including Star-Ledger columnist Mark Di Ionno, with his book The Last Newspaperman; former New Jersey criminal defense attorney John W. Hartmann; and Paul Evans Pedersen Jr. , who chronicles life in the Pine Barrens. The company also published Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City, the book upon which the HBO series “Boardwalk Empire” is based. The Last Newspaperman also takes place in New Jersey and along the Shore. It revisits the 1930s world of tabloid journalism in dramatic fashion through the Lindbergh baby kidnapping and the Morro Castle maritime disaster.
Wallace Stroby, a Long Branch native, will help kick off a weekend of activities associated with the Asbury Park Bookfest on Friday evening by hosting a screening of the classic film noir, “Detour” at The ShowRoom cinema, 707 Cookman Avenue, at 7:30 p.m. It will be followed by a discussion between Stroby and fellow crime writer Dennis Tafoya of Philadelphia, PA called “The Noir of DETOUR – Tough Dames, Cheap Booze, Bad Luck.”
The Asbury Park Bookfest happens the following afternoon on Saturday, April 20 from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. That’s when the over 30 authors will be available to sign and discuss their books, beginning at Gallery 13 in The Shoppes at the Arcade; guide maps will be available there to the other venues included in this free event.
Immediately after the Asbury Park Bookfest, the ShowRoom will screen a stage production of the Charles Dickens classic Great Expectations from London’s West End at 4:00 p.m. On Sunday, April 21, again at The ShowRoom, author David Henry Sterry will travel to Asbury Park from New York City and hold two writing workshops entitled “The Art of the Novel” at 11:00 a.m. and “Pitch-A-Palooza” at 1:00 p.m.
For a full listing of weekend activities associated with the Asbury Park Bookfest happening Friday, April 19 through Sunday, April 21, and details on the over 30 authors bringing their books to the table on Saturday, April 20, log on to www.AsburyPulp.com.
