When Jeff Waxman moved last fall to New York City from Chicago to join Other Press as retail marketing manager, he found a restaurant, Peck's Specialty Foods, that had just opened up the street from his apartment in the Fort Greene/Clinton Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn. "I'm no stranger to good food," he said, and, with a good book, he felt right at home in Peck's. As a former promotions manager for University of Chicago Press and bookseller at Seminary Co-Op's 57th Street Books, he is also no stranger to book events. Some two months ago, reading Yannick Grannec's The Goddess of Small Victories (Other Press, of course) at Peck's counter, Waxman struck up a conversation with owner Theo Peck about possible events. Thus was Book/Plate conceived--for a single ticket price, attendees would enjoy dinner with an author and a copy of their book.
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| Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo of Greenlight, Theo Peck, the proprietor/chef at Peck's, Jeff Waxman and Francisco Goldman. | |
"Jeff approached me about getting involved after he already had the first author booked," said Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, co-owner of nearby Greenlight Bookstore. "It sounded like a great idea. Books, food, and conversation--what could be better? Plus it's a great neighborhood partnership, which is the kind of thing we love to do." Greenlight already had experience organizing events. "We have a number of partnered literary series: the Brooklyn Voices Series at St. Joseph's College, and the Unbound Series at BAM [the Brooklyn Academy of Music]. Each of the partner venues is conducive to a different kind of event, and bundling a book with an event ticket makes for stronger book sales. But this is the first time we've included food with that ticket!"
The first Book/Plate, featuring author Francisco Goldman, took place on August 28. Some 35 guests enjoyed a custom Mexican menu and drinks in Peck's backyard dining area. The food was designed to complement Goldman's new book, The Interior Circuit (Grove Press), a cross-genre memoir of life in Mexico City. "[It] was wonderful," said Bagnulo. "The micheladas, a sort of beer cocktail with a lot of spice, were especially awesome! Francisco chatted with the friends and fans who attended, and read from the book later in the evening. It was a beautiful night!"
Despite its initial success, the second Book/Plate, which would have featured Saeed Jones and his poetry collection Prelude to Bruise (Coffee House Press) on September 18, was canceled because of low ticket sales. "I think that's attributable almost entirely to the Brooklyn Book Festival Bookends events, which drew a lot of people that week," said Bagnulo. "We'll be more strategic in terms of our timing with future events, and we'll also have longer advance lead time to publicize them."
Their next event, planned for September 30 at 7 p.m., features Matthew Gavin Frank, author of Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer (Liveright). Tickets, which include copies of Frank's book, are $50 and available through Book/Plate's website. Peck's is located at 455A Myrtle Ave, Brooklyn, N.Y. This will be the last chance to attend for a few months: "Since the dining space is outdoors we'll take a hiatus over the winter, but we'll be back with a new lineup starting in April or so," Bagnulo said. --Tobias Mutter