Printers Row Lit Fest
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Printers Row Lit Fest is an annual
book fair A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mo ...
and literary festival held in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, Illinois in September. The fair's literary "tableau . . . fills a downtown district where
linotype machine The Linotype machine ( ) is a "line casting" machine used in printing which is manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for one-time use. Li ...
s and printing presses once whirred." The neighborhood was an early book making hub. Founded in 1985 by the Near South Planning Board and originally called the Printers Row Book Fair, it was initially intended to attract visitors to the Printers Row neighborhood on Chicago's near South Side, which had previously been a major publishing hub. The
Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN (AM), WGN radio and ...
acquired the festival from the Near South Planning Board in 2002. It is now known as the Printers Row Lit Fest. Festivals are located on Dearborn between Congress and Polk and along Polk between Plymouth Court and Clark. In the early 21st century, attendance was around 80,000 to 90,000 attendees. According to
Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of ...
, it was by then the
Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...
's largest book fair. In the 2010s, attendance reached 150,000. Included in the festival are hundreds of book vendors, multiple talks with authors, readings, and other programs.
C-SPAN Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network (C-SPAN ) is an American Cable television in the United States, cable and Satellite television in the United States, satellite television network, created in 1979 by the cable television industry as a Non ...
Television has broadcast from the festival. For its initial thirty-four years, the fair was held in late spring or early summer in June. In 2020, the fair was held in September, and it has been regularly held in September ever since.


See also

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Books in the United States As of 2018, several firms in the United States rank among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Cengage Learning, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education, Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, and Wiley. ...


References


External links


Printers Row Book Fair Official Website
{{Books Literary festivals in the United States Book fairs in the United States Festivals in Chicago Festivals established in 1985 1985 establishments in Illinois