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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!
Join the Club!
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!
16 free poetry readings, book signings, author readings in New York City (NYC) Mon, 09/21/2026 - 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!
Author Reading | Up-and-Coming Writer Shares Her First English-Language Book with Valeria Luiselli: Wishbone
Laia Jufresa's first book written in English, Wishbone is dreamy and precise, insightful and thrilling: a work of lived-in magic with a colorful cast of irresistible characters, a dazzlingly inventive structure, and a stunning final revelation. About the Book: Tor Sima is the founder of the International Museum of Color in Oaxaca. Vica Luft is a secretary and single mother in Edinburgh. Disparate as their lives are, they mirror and inform one another in striking ways: an early trauma, a shared lover, an affinity for the octopus. Moving backward in time across two decades and seven cities, Wishbone quietly unravels what ties them together and what sets them apart. This is a captivating story about motherhood and friendship, art and commerce, selfhood and loss; about the parts of us that go missing when a loved one disappears, and the tentacular bonds forged by the families we create.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Tue, Sep 22
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Author Reading | Innovative Culture Writers Share Their New Work (+ Q&A & Signing)
A reading by Christine Hume and Justine Lextrait, followed by a conversation/Q&A with Claudia Rankine. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Christine Hume is a feminist writer of nonfiction and poetry with a strong interest in the intersections between social justice and art. Her essays have been published and reviewed in New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Review of Books, Hyperallergic, McSweeney’s, The Boston Review, Full Stop, Harper’s, Electric Literature, Disabilities Studies Quarterly, Conjunctions, Architecture and Culture, and many other venues. Justine Lextrait writes, studies, edits, draws, cuts, and moves around. They are the author of the fragmented novel Loading Room and the scrapbook zine Everyone Is Layered .
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Thu, Sep 24
12:00 pm
free, RSVP required
12:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | Evening of Local Poetry
Enjoy an evening of poetry with local poet and playwright Galinsky, with "Five Minute Features" from a dozen poets of all styles.
Manhattan, New York, NY
Join the Club!
Thu, Sep 24
8:00 pm
free, no reservation required
8:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Author Reading | New Yorker-Featured Author Reads from His New Book, Ambivalence
Ambivalence is a memoir of the author’s native city of Dublin in the 1980s and ’90s, a portrait of the author as a young man, and an intimate defense of radical thinking about literature and life. In vivid, present-tense passages, Dillon describes his first encounters with writers such as Virginia Woolf, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida. He recalls being seduced by androgyny, ambiguity, and ambivalence on the page and in the life he hoped his reading would transfigure.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Fri, Sep 25
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
7:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Author Reading | Renowned Composer Shares Her New Book, Mirror: A Novel in Reflections
Lera Auerbach, writer, composer, and artist, reads an excerpt from her book. The book is a genre-defying Russian-language novel in reflections, where memory transcends time and prose moves with the architecture of music. Subtitled A Novel in Reflections, Mirror is not a conventional novel. It is diary and monodrama, confession and labyrinth, musical score and mythic theatre. Composed in twenty-four preludes and twenty-four postludes, with trios, mirrored returns, inversions, and a final coda, the book transforms literary form into an act of reflection. One part answers another; one image reappears altered; one memory casts a shadow across another. The result is a work in which prose behaves like music.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Wed, Sep 30
5:00 pm
free, no reservation required
5:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Poetry Reading | Pushcart Prize-Winning Poets Share Their Work(+ Reception & Signing)
Aracelis Girmay, Donna Masini, and Malena Mörling poetry reading, hosted by Catherine Barnett. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Aracelis Girmay is the author of four full-length poetry collections, including the recently published Green of All Heads. Donna Masini is the author of the collections Did You Find Everything You Were Looking For? and 4:30 Movie, among others. Malena Mörling is the author of two books of poetry: Ocean Avenue and Astoria. Her third book, Lumina Station, was published in 2026.
Manhattan, New York, NY
Join the Club!
Thu, Oct 1
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | Evening of Local Poetry
Enjoy an evening of poetry with local poet and playwright Galinsky, with "Five Minute Features" from a dozen poets of all styles.
Manhattan, New York, NY
Join the Club!
Thu, Oct 1
8:00 pm
free, no reservation required
8:00 pm
free, no reservation required
Author Reading | Award-Winning Writers Celebrate Their Latest Work
A fiction reading by Denne Michele Norris, and Patrick Ryan. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Denne Michele Norris is the editor-in-chief of Electric Literature, winner of the 2022 Whiting Literary Magazine Prize. Patrick Ryan's novel, Buckeye, was published in2025. It became a New York Times bestseller, Amazon’s Best Book of 2025, a finalist for Barnes & Noble’s Book of the Year, and a Book-of-the-Month Club Selection.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Fri, Oct 2
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Reading | Storytelling Party & Open Mic
Eric Vetter brings New York’s best established and emerging authors and storytellers to this bookstore for this storytelling party. This event is curated and co-hosted by author/storyteller Michele Carlo, the author of FISH OUT OF AGUA: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks. The show will also include a “Magic Hat Open-Mic” where audience members can sign up for a chance at four minutes of stage time to share their own stories.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Tue, Oct 6
7:00 pm
free, donations welcome,...
7:00 pm
free, donations welcome,...
Author Reading | Vivian Gornick Shares Her Nonfiction Works
A reading by bestselling journalist, essayist, and memoirist followed by a conversation/Q&A with Parul Sehgal. he event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Vivian Gornick is a critic, journalist, essayist, and memoirist. She has published work in the New York Times, The Nation, and the Atlantic Monthly. Her numerous books include Taking a Long Look: Essays on Culture, Literature, and Feminism in Our Time, Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, The Odd Woman and the City, and more.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Thu, Oct 8
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | New York Foundation for the Arts Award Winning Writers' Reading Verse (+ Reception/Signing)
A poetry reading by Kazim Ali, Jill Bialosky, and Tina Chang. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Kazim Ali's most recent book is Sukun: New and Selected Poems, which Publisher's Weekly called "dazzling." Jill Bialosky's newest work of prose is The End is the Beginning: A Personal History of My Mother. Her most recent volume of poetry, Asylum: A Personal, Historical, Natural Inquiry in 103 Lyric Sections, was a finalist for the National Jewish Book Award. Tina Chang is the author of the poetry collections Hybrida, Half-Lit Houses, and Of Gods & Strangers. She is also co-editor of the Norton anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Fri, Oct 9
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | Poetry Open Mic: Share Your Work or Listen to Emerging Writers
Participants can share their original work for up to five minutes. Space is limited to 15 readers; show up on time to get a slot!
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Thu, Oct 15
5:30 pm
free, register for...
5:30 pm
free, register for...
Poetry Reading | Latinx Poetry Salon
A poetry reading by Diannely Antigua, Francisco Aragon, and Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Diannely Antigua is a Dominican American poet and educator. She is the author of two poetry collections, Ugly Music, which was the winner of the Pamet River Prize and a 2020 Whiting Award, and Good Monster. Francisco Aragón's books include, After Rubén, Glow of Our Sweat, and Puerta de Sol. Mandy Gutmann-Gonzalez is a Chilean poet and novelist working at the intersections of text, performance, archive, and translation. They are the author of La Pava and A/An.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Thu, Oct 15
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | Multilingual Poetry Night: Quantum Age
Discover the concepts of Quantum Age Poetry and Quantum Poetics with this multilingual poetry event exploringinnovative poetic frameworks.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Wed, Oct 21
6:30 pm
free, registration required
6:30 pm
free, registration required
Reading | Pushcart Prize-Winning Writers Share Prose & Poetry
A reading by James Ciano, Sara Elkamel, Michelle Phương Hồ, Kyle Carrero Lopez, Migwi Mwangi, and Lindsay Turner, hosted by Matthew Rohrer. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Fri, Oct 23
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
5:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Poetry Reading | Pulitzer Prize Finalists Share their Words in Verse
A poetry reading by Robin Coste Lewis and Adrian Matejka. The event will conclude with a reception/signing with books for sale. Robin Coste Lewis won the National Book Award for Voyage of the Sable Venus, her first collection of poetry. The book was also a finalist for the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and it was named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker and The New York Times. Adrian Matejka is the author of The Devil’s Garden, which won the New York / New England Award, and Mixology, a winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series.
Manhattan, New York, NY
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Thu, Oct 29
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
7:00 pm
free, RSVP required
Join the Club!
Complimentary Tickets
to shows, concerts ... (CFT Deals!)
Classical Music | "Virtuoso" Pianist Performs Works by Liszt & More
Regular Price: $50CFT Member Price: $0.00
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