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Free Events, Free Things to Do in New York City! Read More
Are you looking for literary events like book readings, book signings, poetry readings? Then you came to the right place. Start using these unique New York City opportunities today!
Are you looking for literary events like book readings, book signings, poetry readings? Then you came to the right place. Start using these unique New York City opportunities today!
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The quality and quantity of
free events,
free things to do
that happen in New York City
every day of the year
is truly amazing.
So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
today!
The quality and quantity of
free events,
free things to do
that happen in New York City
every day of the year
is truly amazing.
So don't miss the opportunities
that only New York provides:
stop wondering what to do;
start taking advantage of
free events to go to,
free things to do in NYC
today!
9 free poetry readings, book signings, author readings in New York City (NYC) Tue, 03/25/2025 - and on...
Not a day goes by in New York City (NYC) without a free poetry reading or a book signing or a book reading by a famous or not yet famous author. Don't miss the opportunities that only New York provides!
Poetry Reading | Poetry Reading & Conversation: Tan Lin & Mónica de la Torre
A reading by Tan Lin and Mónica de la Torre, hosted by MFA student Elijah Jackson, followed by a reception/signing. Tan Lin is the author of over 13 books, including Heath Course Pak (2012), Bib. Rev. Ed., Insomnia and the Aunt (2011), 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary 2004. The Joy of Cooking (2010), Plagiarism/Outsource (2009), Ambience is a Novel with a Logo (2007), BlipSoak01 (2003), and Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (2000). His work has appeared in numerous journals including Conjunctions, Artforum, Criticism, boundary2, Cabinet, the New York Times Book Review, Art in America, and Purple. His video, theatrical, and LCD work have been shown at Artists Space, the Marianne Boesky Gallery, the Yale Art Museum, Sophienholm Museum (Copenhagen), Ontological Hysterical Theatre, and as a solo show at Treize Gallery in Paris. Lin earned a PhD from Columbia University. He currently teaches creative writing at Columbia University and New Jersey City University. His novel, Our Feelings Were Made by Hand is forthcoming from Coffee House. Mónica de la Torre’s seven poetry books include Pause the Document (forthcoming from Nightboat in March 2025), Repetition Nineteen, The Happy End / All Welcome, and two collections in Spanish published in her native Mexico City. Among other anthologies, she co-edited Women in Concrete Poetry 1959–79 and is the recipient of a 2022 Creative Capital grant and the 2022 Foundation for Contemporary Arts C.D. Wright Award for Poetry. She teaches poetry and experiments in translation at Brooklyn College.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Apr 3
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | The Nuyorican Poets Cafe
April is poetry month, so celebrate in style with The Nuyorican Poets Cafe. This is an evening of spoken word and connect with your favorite poets in the heart of El Barrio. Attendees will have an opportunity to recite some poetry, meet new poets, check out the archival poetry collection, enjoy delicious fritura, and more!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Apr 10
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry Reading & Conversation: Mei-mei Berssenbrugge
A reading by Mei-mei Berssenbrugge hosted by MFA student Elijah Jackson, followed by a reception/signing. Born in Beijing, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge is the author of fourteen books of poetry including Hello, the Roses, Empathy, I Love Artists, and A Treatise on Stars, shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Her collaborations include works in theater, dance, music, and the visual arts. She received the Bollingen Prize for poetry in 2020.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Apr 17
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry Reading: Brenda Hillman & Wendy Xu
A reading by Brenda Hillman and Wendy Xu, followed by a reception/signing. Brenda Hillman was born in Tucson, Arizona and has been an active part of the Bay Area literary community since 1975. She has published chapbooks with Penumbra Press, a+bend press, EmPress, A Minus Press, and Albion Books and is the author of eleven full-length collections from Wesleyan University Press, the most recent of which are In A Few Minutes Before Later (2022), Seasonal Works with Letters on Fire (2013), which received the International Griffin Poetry Prize, and Extra Hidden Life, among the Days (2018), winner of the Northern California Book Award. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hillman has also received the William Carlos Williams Prize from Poetry Society of America, the Academy of American Poets Fellowship, and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. She has edited an edition of Emily Dickinson’s poems for Shambhala Press, co-edited two books by Richard O. Moore, and, with Patricia Dienstfrey, co-edited The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood (Wesleyan, 2003). She has worked as a co-translator of three books: Poems from Above the Hill by Ashur Etwebi, Instances by Jeongrye Choi, and At Your Feet by Ana Cristina Cesar, all from Free Verse Editions/Parlor Press. Three Talks: Metaphor & Metonymy, Meaning & Mystery, Magic & Morality, her first book of prose essays, was published by University of Virginia Press in autumn 2024. Wendy Xuis is a poet and writer, most recently the author of The Past (Wesleyan 2021) and Phrasis (2017), named one of the 10 Best Poetry Books of 2017 by the New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, Granta, Poetry, Conjunctions, The New Republic, New York Review of Books, Ploughshares, and widely elsewhere. A new book Your Historical Loveliness Knows No Bounds: Form, Futurity, and Documentary Desire will be published Oct 2025 by the Poets on Poetry series at University of Michigan Press. Xu is assistant professor of writing at The New School in NYC.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Apr 18
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Primordial: Poems of Collective Trauma
Mai Der Vang’s poetry—lyrically insistent and visually compelling—constitutes a groundbreaking investigation into the collective trauma and resilience experienced by Hmong people and communities, the ongoing cultural and environmental repercussions of the war in Vietnam, the lives of refugees afterward, and the postmemory carried by their descendants. Primordial is a crucial turn to the ecological and generational impact of violence, a powerful and rousing meditation on climate, origin, and fate. With profound and attentive care, Vang addresses the plight of the saola, an extremely rare and critically endangered animal native to the Annamite Mountains in Laos and Vietnam. The saola looks like an antelope, with two long horns, and is related to wild cattle, though the saola has been placed in a genus of its own. Remarkably, the saola has only been known to the outside world since 1992, and sightings are so rare that it has now been more than a decade since the last known image of one was captured in a camera trap photo in 2013. Primordial examines the saola’s relationship to Hmong refugee identity and cosmology and a shared sense of exile, precarity, privacy, and survival. Can a war-torn landscape and memory provide sanctuary, and what are the consequences for our climate, our origins, our ability to belong to a homeland? Written during a difficult pregnancy and postpartum period, Vang’s poems are urgent stays against extinction.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Apr 22
6:30 pm
$5
6:30 pm
$5
Author Reading | To Go on Living: Stories of Surviving War
Set in an Armenian mountain village immediately after the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s, Narine Abgaryan's To Go On Living traces the interconnected lives of villagers tending to their everyday tasks, engaging in quotidian squabbles, and celebrating small joys against a breathtaking landscape. Yet the setting, suspended in time and space, belies unspeakable tragedy: every character contends with an unbearable burden of loss. The war rages largely off the book's pages, appearing only in fragmented flashbacks. Abgaryan's stories focus on how, in the war's aftermath, the survivors work, as individuals and as a community, to find a way forward. Written in Abgaryan's signature style that weaves elements of Armenian folk tradition into her prose, these stories of community, courage, and resilience celebrate human life, where humor and love and hope prevail in unthinkable circumstances.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Apr 23
6:30 pm
Free
6:30 pm
Free
Reading | Fiction New Salon: Katie Kitamura
A reading by Katie Kitamura followed by a conversation/Q&A with Tess Gunty, and reception/signing. Katie Kitamura’s latest novel is Audition, forthcoming in April 2025 from Riverhead Books (USA) and Fern Press (UK). Her previous novell is Intimacies. One of The New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2021, it was longlisted for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award, and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. It was also one of Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2021. In France, it won the Prix Litteraire Lucien Barriere, was a finalist for the Grand Prix de l’Heroine, and was longlisted for the Prix Fragonard. Her third novel, A Separation, was a finalist for the Premio von Rezzori and a New York Times Notable Book. She is also the author of Gone To The Forest and The Longshot, both finalists for the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award. Her work has been translated into 21 languages and is being adapted for film and television. She is a recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature, as well as fellowships from the Lannan, Santa Maddalena, and Jan Michalski foundations. Katie has written for publications including The New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, Granta, BOMB, Triple Canopy, and Frieze. She teaches in the creative writing program at New York University.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Apr 24
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Reading | Alumni Reading: Aria Aber, Alia Dastagir & August Thompson
Readings by alumni Aria Aber and August Thompson, and current student Alia E. Dastagir, hosted by Darin Strauss, followed by a reception/signing.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Apr 25
5:00 pm
Free
5:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | I Hope You Remember: Poems on Loving, Longing, and Living (online)
This first collection of poetry from Josie Balka evokes themes of nostalgia, love, envy, and hope, speaking to the universal longings that live deep in our souls.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Apr 29
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
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Musical | A Musical with Broadway Actors and Choreographer
Regular Price: $101CFT Member Price: $0.00
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