Sleepy Hollow LitFest to be Held May 18

The first-ever Sleepy Hollow Lit Fest will take place with a full day’s events from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, May 18. At eight venues across Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow from the Tarrytown Music Hall to the Hudson Valley Writers Center, more than 100 authors and artists will take part in free readings, panels, signings, performances, music, open mic, and other family-friendly activities.

Tarrytown children’s author David Neilsen, who dreamed up this festival, had been visiting book festivals up and down the Eastern seaboard for a few years. “These were held in all sorts of random places that had no connection to anything literary,” he said. “Meanwhile, here we were in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, home of Washington Irving, the father of American literature. If any place was a good fit for a literary festival, it was here.”

The culmination of a year of planning from heads of participating organizations, the festival will mark the launch of an 18-month celebration in Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow of the Bicentennial of the serial publishing of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, a collection of stories by Irving, which included “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Real points that match the fictional route Ichabod Crane took while fleeing the Headless Horseman will be marked on festival day with relevant passages from “The Legend.” Some of the programs at the main event tent in Patriot’s Park will discuss Irving's contribution to different aspects of literature. Visitors can stop by Christ Church in Tarrytown to see Irving’s pew and make their way to his gravesite in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to hear about his life, death and legend.

“The Sleepy Hollow Lit Fest is a celebration of our two villages, as well as the literary legacy of our region,” Neilsen said.

Event and Venue Highlights:

• Warner Library in Tarrytown will feature front lawn tents with 50 authors selling and signing books, including popular Chris Grabenstein, Vesper Stamper, Matthew & Mara VanFleet, Siri Daly; with bilingual multi-arts programming inside for all ages including children’s stories with Colombian music, a dramatic reading of Latin American Stories, and the legend of Celia Cruz presented in musical format.
• Patriot’s Park in Tarrytown will host an Event Tent & Vendor Village selling food and select wares. Events include Cookbook Talk with tastings, Dinosaur Storytime, Philipse History, prisoner works reflecting on Rip Van Winkle presented by the Words Beyond Bars Project, a Spooky Panel, and talk with a published Teen!
• Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow will host storytelling, music, crafts and more at their annual Pinkster: African-American Celebration (*ticketed event). SHLF featured author Michael Twitty, James Beard Book Award-winning author of The Cooking Gene, will speak at 1 p.m. in the Barn (free for festival goers).
• The Old Dutch Church will feature mystery/spooky authors inside for various ages; ODC Burying Grounds will have docents to guide you and headstone/history scavenger hunts for kids. Washington Irving‘s grave nearby in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery will have a costumed interpreter talking about Irving’s life and legend.
• The Hudson Valley Writers Center at Philipse Manor Station, Sleepy Hollow, will feature a robust lineup literary authors and poets, including performance artist Karen Finley, a panel on “The Poetry of Witness,” and ending in an after-hours keynote from American-Ukrainian acclaimed poet, translator and professor, Ilya Kaminsky at 7:30 p.m.
• Tarrytown Music Hall’s new Music Hall Academy will put on a series of theatrical workshops by beloved director Peter Royston around fairy tales with the help of some of the festival’s picture book authors.
• Jazz Forum Arts in Tarrytown will offer poetry put to music by the Brasiles Ensemble chorus, bluegrass from Boston-based Pretty Sara, a few numbers from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow: The Musical, and an Open Mic/Slam for teens.

The Villages of Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow, Scattered Books of Chappaqua (the festival’s main bookseller), The Hudson Independent, Horsefeathers restaurant in Tarrytown, Cedar’s Foods, and the Friends of the Warner Library are all proud sponsors of SHLF. Learn more about becoming a sponsor at www.sleepyhollowlitfest.org/sponsors.

For more information and updates, including a complete list of venues/events and participating authors, please visit www.sleepyhollowlitfest.org. Email inquiries to ask@sleepyhollowlitfest.org.