ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK’s Piper Kerman will be at Bryant Park on July 23 to discuss second season of hit Netflix show about her life in prison (photo by Rob Kim/Getty Images)
Bryant Park Reading Room
42nd St. between Fifth & Sixth Aves.
Wednesdays through August 20 at 12:30 & 7:00, free
(Other literary events held Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays)
www.bryantpark.org
Bryant Park’s popular Word for Word series continues through the summer in the outdoor Reading Room, a re-creation of the New York Public Library’s Open Air Library, which was started in August 1935 to give jobless New Yorkers somewhere to go and to experience lively culture during otherwise depressing days. There are book clubs, poetry readings, and storytelling for kids on Tuesday Thursdays, and Saturdays, but Wednesdays at 12:30 are reserved for author appearances, with readings, discussions, interviews, anecdotes, and Q&As, followed by signings. (In addition, beginning June 29, Wednesday evenings will feature authors promoting books on American historical political figures.) Below are only some of the highlights of this season’s schedule.
Wednesday, June 18
Jenny Mollen, I Like You Just the Way I Am: Stories About Me and Some Other People, with special guest Jason Biggs (American Pie, Orange Is the New Black), 12:30
Wednesday, July 16
Debut Novelists, with Mira Jacob (The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing), Courtney Maum (I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You), Ted Thompson (The Land of Steady Habits), and Tiphanie Yanique (Land of Love and Drowning), hosted by Sackett Street Writers’ Workshop founder Julia Fierro, 12:30
Wednesday, July 23
Piper Kerman, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison, 12:30
Wednesday, July 30
Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes, Jay & Silent Bob’s Blueprints for Destroying Everything, 12:30
Wednesday, August 20
“Taste Talks” with April Bloomfield of the Spotted Pig, A Girl and Her Pig: Recipes and Stories, moderated by Daniel Stedman, 12:30