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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!
19 free poetry readings, book signings, author readings in New York City (NYC) Tue, 07/01/2025 - 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!
Author Reading | Book Launch with Acclaimed Writer-Director Malcolm D. Lee
Looking to add to your summer reading list? This event is the launch of The Best Man: Unfinished Business by Malcolm D. Lee, writer and director of the critically acclaimed feature film debut, The Best Man. The first in the trilogy written with Jayne Allen, The Best Man: Unfinished Business follows Harper, Jordan, and Robyn as they try to establish lives away from the hurts of the past and come to realize that some love is impossible to break. Moderating the conversation is author, actress, host of Sirius XM's “Bevelations," and Harlem's own Bevy Smith, who coined the phrase "It gets greater later." Book signing and tasting will follow. Malcolm D. Lee is a writer, director, and producer whose directorial work includes his critically acclaimed feature film debut, The Best Man, as well as Girls Trip, Night School, and The Best Man: The Final Chapters. His company, Blackmaled Productions, is dedicated to telling diverse stories that contribute to changing and amplifying narratives of people of color. Jayne Allen is the author of the bestselling Black Girls Must Die Exhausted novel series and The Most Wonderful Time. Allen crafts transcultural stories that touch upon contemporary women’s issues. Bevy Smith, Quintessential Harlem girl, Gracie Award winner and life-long New Yorker Bevy Smith is the host of Sirius XM’s “Bevelations” on Radio Andy. Once a wildly successful luxury fashion publishing exec, Bevy shifted her professional goals over a decade ago to pursue a life in front of the camera. A pop culture aficionado and fashion expert, Bevy served as moderator of Bravo TV’s revolutionary “Fashion Queens," and was a former co-host on the nationally syndicated “Page Six TV.” Always pushing the boundaries Bevy has embarked on a new acting career and has appeared as fan favorite Aunt Tammy on the first two seasons of the Prime Video series HARLEM.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 1
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Hear Poetry from Award-Winning Writers
Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 1
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Author Reading | Author Discussion on Book about Immigration Detention in USA
This event is a conversation to celebrate the release of Immigration Detention Inc with the authors Nancy Hiemstra and Deirdre Conlon. The United States has the most extensive immigration detention system in the world, expanding from a capacity of less than 5,000 detainees per day in the 1980s to 52,000 by 2019. Nancy Hiemstra and Deirdre Conlon provide a damning exposé of the ways immigration detention generates income while those detained are starved, sickened, and exploited as a matter of routine detention operation. Drawing on over a decade of research and focusing on detention centers in New Jersey and New York, the authors map public-private financial relationships and trace how detention contracts for food, medical care, and in-facility stores are fought over to the penny. By dissecting the inner workings of immigration detention, they show a system governed by a capitalist logic that produces sickening and corrupting dependencies in communities across the US. Coming at a pivotal social and political moment, Immigration Detention Inc. makes the case for dismantling immigration detention regimes everywhere.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 1
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Hear Poetry from Award-Winning Writers
Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 8
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Signing | Pulitzer-Winning Reporter Discusses & Signs His New Book, How We Grow Up
Matt Richtel discusses and signs How We Grow Up, with Jim Steyer. Greatly expanding his award-winning New York Times series on the contemporary teen mental-health crisis, Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter Matt Richtel delivers a groundbreaking investigation into adolescence, the pivotal life stage undergoing profound--and often confounding--transformation. Matt Richtel is a reporter at the New York Times. He received the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for a series of articles about distracted driving that he expanded into his first nonfiction book, A Deadly Wandering, a New York Times bestseller. His second nonfiction book, An Elegant Defense, on the human immune system, was a national bestseller and chosen by Bill Gates for his annual Summer Reading List. His 2022 New York Times series on teen mental health, "The Inner Pandemic," won first place in public health reporting from the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism and drew national media attention.Richtel has appeared on NPR's Fresh Air, CBS This Morning, PBS NewsHour, and other major media outlets. A purchase of How We Grow Up from this bookstore is required to join the signing line at this event. Please call ahead and speak to a bookseller and reserve your copy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 8
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Author Reading | Celebrate New Novel about WWI
This event is a conversation with author Nishant Batsha to celebrate his new book, the extraordinary story of a marriage caught at the intersection of radical politics and everyday life. He'll be speaking with Executive Director of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop Jafreen Uddin, followed by a signing. A Bomb Placed Close to the Heart is an expansive and poignant novel of love, radical ambition, and intellectual rebirth set at the dawn of World War I. Seating is limited and will be first come, first served. Doors open at 5:30 pm.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jul 9
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Author Reading | Life Must Go On: A Holocaust Survivor’s Story of Hope and Resilience (Online!)
Discover the extraordinary life of Sol Lurie, a child survivor of six concentration camps, in Life Must Go On—a powerful testament to human strength, faith, and forgiveness. Author Bea Lurie shares Sol’s journey from the Kovno Ghetto to liberation at Buchenwald on his 15th birthday. Through Sol’s eyes, we gain insight into a lesser-known chapter of Holocaust history in Eastern Europe and the courage of those who helped him survive. Bea Lurie will discuss the book in conversation with Dr. Steven Leonard Jacobs.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jul 9
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Author Reading | Nonfiction Authors Discuss Southeast Asian Political landscape and Culture
This event is a conversation with Benjamin Tausig, author of Bangkok after Dark: Maurice Rocco, Transnational Nightlife, and the Making of Cold War Intimacies, and Rianne Subijanto, author of Communication against Capital: Red Enlightenment at the Dawn of Indonesia. About Bangkok after Dark: From the 1930s to the 1950s, jazz pianist Maurice Rocco was a mainstay in Hollywood and American nightlife scenes. As rock and roll surpassed jazz as America’s most popular music in the 1950s, the queer Black pianist’s fortunes faded and he was forced to go abroad for new opportunities. In 1964 Rocco settled in Bangkok, where he thrived and enjoyed a relatively privileged life until he was murdered by two young male sex workers in 1976. In Bangkok after Dark, Benjamin Tausig uses Rocco’s intriguing story to trace the history of transnational nightlife encounters between Thais and Americans during the long American war in Vietnam. Tausig shows how these encounters, which included musical collaborations, romantic and sexual relationships, and new labor, identity, and geopolitical configurations, remade Thailand in crucial and enduring ways. Tausig challenges conventional understandings of the global Cold War on individual and transnational scales. About Communication against Capital: Communication against Capital explores the revolutionary communication strategies of the pergerakan merah, the anticolonial "red movement" in 1920s Indonesia. Rianne Subijanto tells the story of ordinary lower-class women and children and people of diverse races and ethnicities who waged their battles against Dutch colonialism within multiple arenas of communication, including political associations, assemblies, printed matter, schools, and shipping lines. In this process, communist ideas merged with ideals drawn from the Enlightenment to shape the emancipatory spirit of Indonesians.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Wed, Jul 9
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Book Signing | Author Discusses & Signs Her Book on Lorne Michaels and Saturday Night Live
Susan Morrison discusses and signs Lorne, with Roz Chast. Drawn from hundreds of interviews--with Michaels, his friends, and SNL's iconic stars and writers, from Will Ferrell to Tina Fey to John Mulaney to Chris Rock to Dan Aykroyd--Lorne is a deeply reported, wildly entertaining account of a man singularly obsessed with the show that would define his life and have a profound impact on American culture. Susan Morrison is the articles editor of The New Yorker. She is the former editor in chief of the New York Observer and an original editor of SPY magazine. A purchase of Lorne from this bookstore is required to join the signing line at this event. Please call ahead and speak to a bookseller and reserve your copy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Thu, Jul 10
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
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!
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jul 11
5:30 pm
Free
5:30 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry Festival!
Hundreds of poets. Two full days of readings, performances, open mics, workshops, installations, and literary fun for all ages. Lounge in the grass, explore the book fair, grab a drink in the beer garden, and hear work from 2025 headliners Naomi Shihab Nye, Eileen Myles, Sam Sax, Anne Waldman, and Andrew Whiteman.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sat, Jul 12
11:00 am
Free
11:00 am
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry Festival Returns to This Small Island
Hundreds of poets. Two full days of readings, performances, open mics, workshops, installations, and literary fun for all ages. Lounge in the grass, explore the book fair, grab a drink in the beer garden, and hear work from 2025 headliners Naomi Shihab Nye, Eileen Myles, Sam Sax, Anne Waldman, and Andrew Whiteman.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Sun, Jul 13
11:00 am
Free
11:00 am
Free
Poetry Reading | Hear Poetry from Award-Winning Writers
Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 15
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Book Signing | Bestselling Food Author Discusses & Signs His New Book, Cheesecake
Mark Kurlansky discusses and signs his new book, Cheesecake. This book is a delectable novel following one Manhattan block as an ancient cheesecake recipe-and a conniving landlord-change the Upper West Side forever. Mark Kurlansky is the New York Times bestselling author of nonfiction, including Cod, Salt, The Big Oyster, Milk!, The Core of an Onion, and fiction, including Boogaloo on 2nd Avenue, Edible Stories, City Beasts, and The White Man in the Tree. He has received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Bon Appetit's Food Writer of the Year Award, the James Beard Award, and the Glenfiddich Award. He is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and frequently contributes to the New York Times and the London Guardian. A purchase of Cheesecake from this bookstore is required to join the signing line at this event. Please call ahead and speak to a bookseller and reserve your copy.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Tue, Jul 15
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry & Music in the Park
Enjoy a summer evening in the park with music and poetry. This program features two poets and a musician to explore and highlight the connections between poetry and music. Line-Up: Peter Gizzi, Ariana Reines, and Felukah
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jul 18
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Author Reading | Author Discusses Her New Feminist Book on Witches in Horror Films
This event is a chat with author and film critic Payton McCarty-Simas to celebrate the release of their second book, That Very Witch: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film! In the book, Payton tackles over seventy years of American film history and politics, exploring the relationship between representations of witches in horror film and American feminist movements. Touching on everything from Second Wave feminism to the Satanic Panic, from the #MeToo Movement to QAnon and beyond, Payton will discuss the political interplay between feminist activism and American genre film culture, unpacking movies big and small along the way. Payton McCarty-Simas is an author, programmer, and film critic based in New York City. They hold a Masters in film and media studies from Columbia University, where she focused her research on horror film, psychedelia, and the occult in particular. Payton’s writing has been featured in The Brooklyn Rail, Little White Lies, Rue Morgue, Film Daze, and others, and she is the author of two books, One Step Short of Crazy: National Treasure and the Landscape of American Conspiracy Culture, and All of Them Witches: Fear, Feminism, and the American Witch Film.
New York City, NY; NYC
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Sun, Jul 20
2:00 pm
Free
2:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Hear Poetry from Award-Winning Writers
Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 22
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Poetry & Music in the Park
Enjoy a summer evening in the park with music and poetry. This program features two poets and a musician to explore and highlight the connections between poetry and music. Line-Up: LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and Sofia Wolfson
New York City, NY; NYC
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Fri, Jul 25
7:00 pm
Free
7:00 pm
Free
Poetry Reading | Hear Poetry from Award-Winning Writers
Award-winning poetry by established and emerging poets throughout the summer.
New York City, NY; NYC
Join the Club!
Tue, Jul 29
6:00 pm
Free
6:00 pm
Free
Join the Club!
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