Harlem Book Fair 2006

Here are a few pictures from this year's Harlem Book Fair, which QBR: The Black Book Review hosted for the 8th time at venues on and near 135th Street, between 5th Avenue and Adam Clayton Powell Blvd. Over 50,000 people were expected to attend the fair, which included bookstalls, live performances, and panel discussions. For the few hours this afternoon that I was there, it was packed. I ran into an old colleague from the university and several fellow writers I hadn't seen in a while, and had an opportunity to witness once again the vitality of African-American and African literary and cultural production.

Young people at an exhibit in the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Promoters of Marvelous World, which they described as the "Black Harry Potter"

Author Dashawn Taylor with fans

M. W. Moore, author of For What I Hate I Do

Poet and fiction writer Jacqui Johnson and Cave Canem director Carolyn Micklem

Poet Dante Micheaux at the Cave Canem table

Former Manhattan Borough President C. Virginia Fields

Poet Reginald Lockett, visiting from Oakland

Mutiya Vision at his booth, with his children's books

Best-selling author Omar Tyree, recipient of this year's Harlem Book Fair Wheatley Book Award

Two authors addressing fans under one of the tents

86-year-old Guyanese-American author, critic, scholar and activist Jan Carew; one of the major luminaries of Caribbean and pan-African literature and culture, he was also one of the first professors of African American studies at Northwestern University, and his work and presence paved the way for my colleagues and me. Meeting and speaking with him was one of the highlights of my visit to the fair.

Author Valerie Chandler Smith, proudly showing her posterboard ad for her book, To Each His Own.

Dr. LaSalle D. Leffall, Jr., the first African-American president of the American Cancer Society and of the American College of Surgeons, chair of the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation, and the Charles R. Drew Professor of Surgery at the Howard University College of Medicine, at the Howard University Press book table, with his book, No Boundaries: A Cancer Surgeon's Odyssey.

I didn't get this guy's name, but he was discussing financial planning to an enthusiastic audience

A demonstration of the "Toy Exercise Machine"

Two of the actors in the Urban S.L.A.M. videos

Fellow blogger, writer and actor Bernie Tarver (Bejata), and author David Moore (wearing shades, at right)