“Queens is the new Brooklyn.” For the last year or so, it’s been a real-estate-broker claim. Michael Geffner, successful producer of InspiredWordNYC, decided to make it an author rallying cry with the first-ever Queens Lit Fest on August 1 and 2. And five Mystery Writer of America, New York Chapter members—proud to reside in the borough of Archie Bunker and Peter Parker, the New York Mets, two stupefying airports and the finest ethnic food in the city—took part.
It began, as many things do, with Facebook. I spotted a post from Michael months ago, announcing his plan to hold a literary festival in Long Island City celebrating poetry and spoken word. “What about mystery authors?” I commented, throwing down the gauntlet. He responded that if I could round up a Queens crime-fiction group, he’d schedule us.
Putting together the group was like assembling the cast of Avengers: Age of Ultron. I recruited my Forest Hills neighbors, Laura Joh Rowland and Megan Abbott. I knew Terrie Farley Moran from a MWA library reading in Jamaica, Queens. Alex Segura runs a very cool Noir at the Bar in Kew Gardens. I had my dream team.
I frankly did not know what to expect from the lit fest itself, set to take place at the historic LIC Bar on Vernon Boulevard. In the fortnight leading up to the festival, Michael’s media contacts produced coverage in three newspapers, on a TV news channel, and on countless author blogs. The advance press filled me with excitement—and some nerves too.
Saturday at 3:30 p.m. was the first mystery slot, for Laura and Terrie. After enjoying a rap performance on the music stage, the two women trooped to the enclosed author reading area (a carriage house, holding about 50 people) and gave fantastic readings. They owned the room.
Sunday afternoon it was the turn of Alex, Megan, and myself. We followed the 3 p.m. slot of Queen’s poet laureate Maria Lisella, which seemed fortuitous . . . until most of the audience stood up to leave with the laureate when she’d finished. Spotting my stricken expression, a crop-topped festival worker stood on a chair in the courtyard and bellowed, “There are mystery authors in there! They write mysteries. Mysteries.” This actually worked and some curious folks assembled inside the reading room, joining our own friends and spouses.
Megan and Alex read about eight minutes each, prose delivered with aplomb. I ended the mystery bloc with a short passage from my third novel. Afterward a woman told me she enjoyed my selection and would buy Queens Noir, on sale at the Astoria Bookstore table in the courtyard, to read more of my work. I had to break it to her that since my novels are all set in 16th century England, I’m not part of that anthology. She was undaunted. I think I scored a sale.
The first Queens Lit Fest may have lacked the behemoth status of Brooklyn Book Fair. But there was a friendly, inclusive energy to the goings on. It couldn’t have been more pleasant to sip a micro-brew in the LIC Bar courtyard. Among the poets, rappers, and hipsters, we mystery authors had a place. Next year, should there be a second writers’ festival, we shall return. But perhaps not directly after the poet laureate.
—Nancy Bilyeau
For more pictures of MWA-NY at Queens Lit Fest, check out our Facebook album.
Nancy Bilyeau is the author of the historical thriller trilogy The Crown, The Chalice, and The Tapestry, published by Touchstone Books in North America as well as in the United Kingdom and Germany. She is a veteran of the magazine business, with staff positions on Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, InStyle, and DuJour.