Wanna schmooz with your fave writer in Brooklyn?
There’s an app for that.
A new iPhone app hitting cyberspace Friday at 1 p.m. will give literature nerds from around the world access to the borough’s A-list celebration of the printed word.
The Brooklyn Book Festival has teamed up with AT&T creating the first-ever e-guide to its ode to authors – growing from a one day event to seven featuring more than 280 writers speaking around the borough.
The app features writers’ biographies, maps of where they’ll be, and invites users to vote for their “Fan Fav.”
Any of the festival’s authors can win the people’s choice-styled award where the top three picks will get $1,000 to $3,000 to give to a charity of their choosing.
“It’s like having a menu in a restuarant,” said legendary newspaperman and novelist Pete Hamill about the app.
The seven-year-old festival kicks off Monday featuring a blogger bash at Public Assembly in Wiliamsburg.
Dozens of wordsmiths will storm the borough throughout the week attending powwows, parties, and confabs – all praising each others’ prose.
The climax comes September 23rd when scores of scribes flood Brooklyn Heights for a day-long series of talks.
Hamill was chosen as this year’s “BoBi” writer, joining other famed borough-bred writers Paul Auster and Walter Mosley.
“As an old Brooklyn guy, I don’t look down my nose at new Brooklyn,” Hamill said.
AT&T helped fund the festival’s expansion and its app creation turning the event into a Fashion Week-like event for book geeks.
“Brooklyn has become the hub of technology for the city and Brooklyn is also the hub of the literary community,” said Marissa Shorenstein, president of AT&T New York.
“Eat the City” author Robin Shulman, 36, was happy to learn that anyone can download her biography with the app from anywhere on the planet.
“It’s great to have such easy access,” Shulman said. “This is so Brooklyn.”
