The roster of contributors to Brooklyn Was Mine—including heavy hitters like Jennifer Egan, Lara Vapnyar, Jonathan Lethem, Darcey Steinke, and Darin Strauss, plus fifteen others—is impressive, but you could say that about any number of anthologies. The same could be said of the decision to donate all the book’s proceeds to a non-profit organization, but we’re getting closer to what makes this collection unique. Develop Don’t Destroy Brooklyn is the group on the receiving end of the contributors’ largesse—not surprising, given that four of them are on the DDDB advisory board. Its most prominent role in the community? Vocal, organized opposition to Forest City Ratner’s proposed $4 billion Atlantic Yards development, a project they describe as “overwhelmingly dense, grossly out-of-scale with its surrounding neighborhood,” and disruptive to longstanding communities.
Susan Choi will be joining Egan and Strauss for a reading at the Park Slope Barnes & Noble Wednesday night, and then next week Steinke will read at the Brooklyn Heights indie Book Court with Emily Barton and Alexandra Styron. And you never know who else might turn up for moral support.
(Funnily enough, this isn’t the only anthology raising money for a Park Slope-based non-profit right now. There’s another reading at Symphony Space next week for The Book of Other People, a collection of short stories benefitting 826NYC, with George Saunders, Vendela Vida, and what’s billed as a special appearance by Maggie Gyllenhaal.)