Book fair is oasis in vast ‘Bronx book desert’

The Bronx has a land area of more than 42 square miles, and is home to nearly 1.5 million people. 

In that space, there are 369 schools, just under 242,000 students, all part of  a very big, very diverse borough with a seemingly endless list of local businesses and institutions. 

But there is one type of business you won’t find listed among those numbers: bookstores. 

More people live in the Bronx than in San Antonio — the seventh largest city in the United States, according to census figures — and yet there is not one bookstore in the whole borough. 

While not having any bookstores does not necessarily mean not having books — especially given the popularity of online retailers like Amazon and Apple — activist and bookworm Ron Kavanaugh said he wants the Bronx to be more than just a place where books are sold, but also a place where books live. 

That’s why five years ago he partnered with a few other advocates to create the annual Bronx Book Fair at the Bronx Library Center.

“You have to have a demand for books,” Kavanaugh said. “That’s what we hope to do here, is not to just have panels and workshops, but just support the whole idea of living a literary life.”

The all-day event kicked off at 11 a.m., on the bottom floor of the library on East Kingsbridge Road, where publishers, authors, and even some comic book writers set up tables to sell books, promote their work, and entice attendees their creations. 

The vendors ran the gamut from people like Derek Charles and Osjua Newton, the creators of an action-comedy comic “Sayaka Katsuragi,” about a student who needs a new hobby and decides to join his high school’s resident ninja club. It also includes representatives from the Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse, which prints hand-bound poetry collections.

The three people who came to the Bronx event with Ugly Duckling included Maddie Braun, who loves to spend more time in the Bronx and help bring about what she described as a much-needed appreciation for books.

“I think the more connections we make, the more we can share our experience and start something,” she said. 

“I would love to start like a reading series with someone in the Bronx. It’s not that hard. It’s just taking the initiative.”

Kavanaugh, who runs the Bronx-based Literary Freedom Project, said that the community is now in a time where a lack of brick-and-mortar book stores is turning the Bronx into a sort of “book desert.” He and other activists, especially local authors and libraries, have spent most of this year playing with the idea of how to establish a long-term literary culture throughout the borough. 

“How do you infuse literature in the lives of people?” he asked. “We think hosting a book fair is a good place to start. We are just trying to instill this whole idea of reading and literature in the lives of people, not just young, but also adults.” 

The Bronx Book Fair has far outgrown itself since the Bronx Library Center first hosted in 2013, Kavanaugh said. He attributes the secret of that success to the amount of vendors that have started taking it seriously. 

“It’s not just a local, neighborhood event anymore,” Kavanaugh said. “People are kind of commuting here, on the train or on the bus. They are coming here because they know there is something new happening.”

One of those newcomers was Jessica Vample, who made the two-hour trip from Philadelphia to promote the latest addition to her book series, “The College Life” series, which she says follows a group of young, black women as they experience college life. 

“I knew I was going to be doing a book tour this year … and I actually came across this event,” she said. “It’s been good. I have sold books and talked to some other authors, and it’s been great.”

While the annual Bronx Book Fair may not be a permanent answer for a gap in access Bronxites have to books in their area, it certainly seems to attract a crowd who wants to be around them. 

“Sometimes you got book festivals and it’s the same people year after year,” Kavanaugh said. 

“But here we have a good mix of different people. We hope that works for everybody.”