Arts & Entertainment

Book Festival Packs A Lot into One Day

Need help planning your book festival experience? Look no further.

The Chestnut Hill Book Festival is not messing around.

While the fourth annual festival might appear on the surface to be a smaller affair than past years events due to its pairing down from two days to one, festival committee chair Marie Lachat says the shift down is a sign of experience, not remission.

"We took a look at the festival in years past and tried to streamline it somewhat this year," she said. "It's usually done in July, but we moved it to the fall. It used to be two days, but we changed it to one day and added the speaker series, which we hope will be an ongoing thing."

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Lachat isn't kidding. The festival has packed 15 events at five locations around Chestnut Hill into one day that includes talks and panels from over dozen authors and book reviewers, writing workshops, live music, book signings, beer tastings and comedy shows, to say nothing of a visit from former Governor and Mayor Ed Rendell.

"It's a great amount for one day," Lachat said. "I'll be at [Christ Ascension Lutheran Church] all day, but there are so many things I'd love to see here, but you just can't be at everything." 

Find out what's happening in Chestnut Hill-Mt. Airywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Check out the book festival's website or the attachments to this story for more information on all the authors scheduled to speak and check out the schedule attached to this story to plan your festival experience.


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