This year come celebrate the Leimert Park Village Book Fiar’s 10th anniversary. It’s been decade of bring black literary artiest to Los Angeles.

According to the book fair’s website, “The Leimert Park Village Book Fair was founded in 2007 by Cynthia E. Exum with the goal of promoting literacy and education in Los Angeles. The Leimert Park Village Book Fair was inspired by a project in February 1999 when Ms. Exum partnered with Our Authors Study Club, Inc. to present a ‘Festival of African American Authors’ at Los Angeles Southwest College. Its success in drawing 10 authors participating for an audience of 40 inspired the idea of creating an annual literary event…Leimert Park was chosen as the host venue site because of its importance as the cultural/artistic center of the African American Community in Los Angeles.” Today, the book fair draws more than 200 authors, poets, spoken word artists, storytellers, performers, and literary/educational exhibitor participants – and boasts an audience of over 5,000.

As founder Cynthia E. Exum says on the book fair’s website, “In the past nine years, the Book Fair has had an incredible lineup of authors, poets, celebrity authors, speakers and artists, including Pulitzer Prize winners Isabel Wilkerson and Douglas A. Blackmon; prominent literary figure Ishmael Reed; New York Times best seller Eric Jerome Dickey; poet/activist Nikki Giovanni and poet/playwright Sonia Sanchez; Oscar winner Louis Gossett Jr….just to name a few. But, there’s still more authors to be had!”

As always, the book fair is a family-oriented event will be held in the heart of Leimert Park, which is considered the center of the African American arts/intellectual scene in the city.

Some of the scheduled authors for this years event are: Gary Phillips and Bethanee Epifani among others.

This years book fair is August 20th from 10 am to 6 pm.

Check the Leimert Park Village Book Fair’s website for more info: http://leimertparkbookfair.com/home.htm