I like hearing writers talk, and not just about writing. I like seeing them up on stage and imagining, “Hey, this would be a fun person to get drinks with” or wondering, “Wow, she seems like she has so much energy. How does she ever sit down to write?” It’s interesting to see if these public impressions have any relation to the work they produce.
So, here they are: my impressions for you to share. In a feature that will be as regular as I can manage, I’ll extoll what I noticed up on stage for anyone who, like me, is curious what these people so proficient with written words will do when they’re confronted with a microphone.
All posts with “The Dust Jacket” will be my “recap” of author events which I managed to attend, but for you in the New York area, I’m including links on where to find event listings for yourself!
Bookforum has the most comprehensive listing of author events I’ve found. Seems like all of the book stores and some of the universities make sure to register their events here.
The New York Public Library has excellent offerings, the only trick is to find them on their page. They offer so many programs- children’s storytimes, classes, book groups, movie showings, that the author events will get lost in the calendar feed, so I recommend going to the programs page and clicking on those links (I especially recommend Books at Noon!)
Bryant Park’s Word for Word series offers an incredible array of author events, poetry readings, writing workshops, etc.
Books of Wonder runs a truly impressive amount of events (many for children’s books so the whole family can go!)
The ever-cool Mysterious Bookshop seems to host author events every other week or so.
Then there’s ClubFreeTime, which is an everything kind of site, but does tend to have the author talks from the NYPL and larger bookstores listed, as well as some other bookish events I only found listed there.
Black Mutts 
Me too love seeing authors up close!
This sounds like so much fun! The only time i have managed to see and hear authors up close, have been at literary festivals – both in India & South Africa. But these events are few and far between. Authors are such special people – they have this incredible skill of taking you places!
It’s fun. I used to be able to go to more of these events- but my daughter’s almost two and won’t sit still anymore. It’s really changed my perspective on some of the books, hearing about the inspiration behind them from the source.