Today at Greenlight: Six-Word Memoirs, Book Making, Whiskey Tasting & More!

Fulton Street in Fort Greene will be closed to all car and bus traffic for a different kind of Street Festival. It's called FABfest and is hosted by the FAB (Fulton Area Business) Alliance. FABfest celebrates local Brooklyn businesses, arts groups and cultural organizations with music, food, games, crafts, and activities for children, dance parties, environmental demonstrations, and more... all with a local connection to Fulton Street in Clinton Hill and Fort Greene.

Greenlight Bookstore will provide a host of literary programming during FAB FEST, all with the goal of interacting with the community, highlighting local cultural organizations, and adding book-related fun to the festival. The bookstore will be open all four Sundays, with some programming inside; interactive activities will take place on our sidewalk throughout the day. Here's what's going on today!

12:00 - 6:00 (on the sidewalk): Write your own Six-Word Memoir!
The six-word memoir format has become a genuine phenomenon since its launch on the Smith Magazine website in 2006, spawning several books and thousands of stories.

Rachel Fershleiser, co-editor of the Six-Word Memoirs series, offers passers-by the chance to write their own six-word memoir of our community, to be displayed in front of the store.


12:00 - 6:00 (on the sidewalk): Free Book Making Class with Esther Smith!
Esther Smith creates handmade books and letterpressed ephemera the old-fashioned way with her husband Dikko Faust at Tribeca studio Purgatory Pie Press. Their typography designs are a special favorite of Greenlight Bookstore: Esther and Dikko designed our bookstore’s logo!

Esther is also the author of three wonderful books on bookmaking and paper crafts: How To Make Books, Magic Books and Paper Toys, and The Paper Bride.

Today at FABfest, Esther offers an ongoing FREE bookmaking workshop, with all materials provided. Stop in to Greenlight Bookstore to pick up any of her books, and let Esther teach you the joys of bookmaking at this great streetside class!


3:00 PM: Walking Tour of Historic Fort Greene with Adrienne Onofri, author of Walking Brooklyn
Enjoy a tour of historic Fort Greene with Adrienne Onofri, author of Walking Brooklyn. Meet at the statue of General Fowler, Civil War hero, at the triangle park named after him... Fowler Square. The tour will end at Greenlight Bookstore, where Adrienne will sign copies of her wonderful book.

Please Note: Adrienne Onofri will lead three different tours of Fort Greene during FABfest, with a different tour on June 6 and yet another one on June 20. Feel free to come and take all three!


3:00 PM (in the store): Greenlight and Greene Grape present Max Watman, author of Chasing The White Dog: An Amateur Outlaw's Adventures in Moonshine, in conversation with Gable Erenzo, distiller of Tuthilltown Spirits.
Tasting to follow, 4:00 PM at Greene Grape Wines & Spirits
White whiskey, sometimes known as “moonshine” is having a revival: the New York Times recently ran a feature on the new craftsmen of this traditional spirit, including the Hudson Valley’s Tuthilltown Spirits, which included commentary by journalist and amateur distiller Max Watman. Max and Tuthilltown's distiller Gable Erenzo talk about Max’s book and the new distillery culture at Greenlight this afternoon, then walk across the street to taste Tuthilltown’s offerings at pioneering local wine & spirits shop The Greene Grape.