Tag Archives: Word Up Community Bookshop

Word Up: Screening: EARTH SEED (People’s Kitchen Collective)

Sunday, October 19, 2025 – 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Word Up Community Bookshop / Librería Comunitaria
2113 Amsterdam Ave. & 165th St.
New York, NY 10032

REGISTER

Word Up presents a screening of EARTH SEED. Led by People’s Kitchen Collective, EARTH SEED centers a pilgrimage through California from present-day Los Angeles to Mendocino Woodlands that happened from March – June 2023, where they visited with people and places, discussing building models for survival and our collective future.

Rooted in Octavia Butler’s Parables series, the legacy of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, and the diaspora of the global south, EARTH SEED enacts radical hospitality as a survival practice.  It does so by deepening our relationships with BIPOC activists, artists, educators, farmers, youth, and elders.

More about the film and project: https://peopleskitchencollective.com/earth-seed

This screening is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 30 max attendees. Please register in advance.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees for this event must wear a mask inside.

Word Up Community Bookshop is located at 2113 Amsterdam Ave. (& 165th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 168th St and the A/C train to 163rd or 168th  St.

Word Up at Inwood Hill Park: Uptown Kid Lit

Uptown Kid Lit—Word Up’s book festival for kids—is back on Sunday, September 7, 2025 at Pat’s Lawn at Inwood Hill Park!

Join Word Up Community Bookshop in celebrating the magic of children’s literature and the back-to-school season at the premier Uptown children’s book festival. Young readers will have the opportunity to meet beloved local authors and illustrators as they present new books, lead story times and activities, readings and discussions, workshops, games, and more. Plus, FREE books and school supply giveaways to all registrants. Register today!

Featured authors & artists:
Selina Alko (C is for Camp)
Ethan T. Berlin (The Journal of Nonsense)
Hilda Eunice Burgos (Bodega Cats: Pawsome Pals)
Cynthia Carrión
CodeSpeak Labs
Rio Cortez (The Blue Velvet Chair)
Edwidge Danticat (Watch Out for Falling Iguanas)
tasha dougé
Olivier ThePlace (with Drag Artists For Expression NYC)
James Kwan (I Come from Another Galaxy: A Picture Book)
Allegra LeGrande
Jenan Matari (Everything Grows in Jiddo’s Garden)
Claribel Ortega (House of Elephants (Witchlings 3))
Jasminne Paulino (The Extraordinary Orbit of Alex Ramirez)
Alyssa Reynoso-Morris (Bold, Brilliant, and Latine: Meet 52 Latine and Hispanic Heroes from Past and Present)
Neela Vaswani (This Is My Eye: A New York Story)
Jamia Wilson (Make Good Trouble: Discover Movements That Sparked Change)
Tanya Wright (The Great Birthday Surprise! (Hairiette of Harlem))
Ibi Zoboi (First Day Around the World)

COMMUNITY RESOURCE TABLES
New York Restoration Project
The Cat Collective Team
Uptown Stories
HOPE
Literary Freedom Project / Sak Pasé
Drag Artists for Expression NYC
Family Connectors
FACE
Sugar Hill Children’s Museum
Dominican Writers Association/Lil Dominican Readers
Parents Supporting Parents
Dyckman Farmhouse
Friends of Inwood Hill Park
LINC

SCHEDULE UPDATES ON WordUpBooks.com/UKL

Word Up launched Uptown Kid Lit in 2019 as a one-day festival for our communities in Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem, and the Bronx. After two years of virtual/hybrid programming in 2020 and 2021, UKL returned in person in 2022 with a focus on comics as part of the three-day Uptown Comics Fest. Each year has garnered a unique and vibrant group of local authors, illustrators, educators, publishers, editors, craftspeople, artists, and community organizations—all to support and celebrate our neighborhood’s youngest readers and families. We hope you’ll join us in 2025 at Inwood Hill Park!

We are committed to keeping admission to the festival free. Producing a multi-faceted outdoor festival requires a lot of resources. We are grateful for the grant funding we have received, which helps offset Uptown Kid Lit expenses, but this funding doesn’t cover all our costs, especially during this year of budget cuts across nonprofits. In order to keep Uptown Kid Lit a yearly neighborhood event, please consider registering at one of the ticket levels, ranging from $5 to $50.

LOCATION: Pat’s Lawn is located at the northwest corner of Inwood Hill Park off of Indian Road and 218th Street in Inwood, NYC. You can take the A to 207 St., the Bx7 to 218th St., or the M100 to Broadway and W 220 St.

ACCESSIBILITY: The closest entrance to the venue at 218th Street and Indian Road is wheelchair accessible. The event is on a grass lawn.

SPONSORSHIPS: If you would like to be a sponsor of this event, please email us at UptownReads@WordUpBooks.com. Sponsors will be featured in our promotional materials.

Uptown Kid Lit 2025 is made possible in part with funds from UMEZ Arts Engagement, a regrant program supported by the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ), and administered by LMCC. Uptown Kid Lit is also supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. Word Up Community Bookshop’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

ADDITIONAL THANKS TO:
Blick Art Materials
Penguin Random House
Simon & Schuster
Macmillan
Candlewick Press / Holiday House Publishing, Inc. / Peachtree Publishing, Inc.
Realengo Studios
Juan Pablo Duarte Foundation
Dominican Women’s Development Center

Word Up: Pamela L. Laskin & Ellen Paige’s WHAT I FORGOT TO TELL YOU

Sunday, November 2, 2025 – 2:00pm to 3:00pm
Word Up Community Bookshop / Librería Comunitaria
2113 Amsterdam Ave. & 165th St.
New York, NY 10032

REGISTER

Word Up welcomes Pamela L. Laskin and Ellen Paige to read and discuss their new middle-grade, neurodivergent love story, What I Forgot to Tell You (out October 21).

“An insightful and beautifully rendered love-story about two rarely portrayed characters I hope we see more of.” —Blair Fell, author of novels The Sign For Home & upcoming Disco Witches of Fire Island

This event is a $5 suggested donation ticket with 30 max attendees. Please register in advance.

In compliance with Word Up Community Safety guidelines, all attendees for this event must wear a mask inside.

Word Up Community Bookshop is located at 2113 Amsterdam Ave. (& 165th St.) in Washington Heights, NYC. You can take the 1 train to 168th St and the A/C train to 163rd or 168th  St.

ABOUT THE BOOK

WHAT I FORGOT TO TELL YOU is an engrossing coming-of-age love story, sans any sugar-coating, about two neurodivergent young people dealing with the often unjust, ableist world and their right and ability to find love and joy.

Insightful, touching, gut-wrenching, original and important. A book which gives voice to characters we rarely ever hear from in fiction. A story that is a resource to open our minds to other ways of experiencing the world and everyone’s right to experience love and commitment.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Pamela L. Laskin is a retired teacher of children’s writing and the former director of the Poetry Outreach Center. She is the author of five books of poetry, and three young adult novels. She is the winner of Leapfrog International fiction prize in 2018 for her novel Why No Goodbye.

Ellen Paige is a clinical social worker and adjunct professor in the psychology department in a local community college. She is a longtime member of the Board of Directors of FREE (Family Residences and Essential Enterprises). Her son Joe, who is 43 years old, lives in a FREE community group home with Gretchen, his wife. Her passion in life has been and remains advocacy for her son and daughter-in-law, as well as all others who are stigmatized and marginalized through no fault of their own.

No Name Super Storyteller Party (November 2025)

Tuesday, November 4, 2025 – 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Word Up Community Bookshop / Librería Comunitaria
2113 Amsterdam Ave. & 165th St.
New York, NY 10032

register

No Name Comedy/Variety Show producer Eric Vetter brings New York’s best established and emerging authors and storytellers to Word Up Community Bookshop in Washington Heights for their monthly series “No Name At Word Up Super Storyteller Party”.

Super Story Party is curated and co-hosted by author/storyteller Michele Carlo, the author of FISH OUT OF AGUA: My life on neither side of the (subway) tracks (Citadel Press).

The show will also include a “Magic Hat Open-Mic” where audience members can signup for a chance at four minutes of stage time to share their own stories.

Rising in the Heights – Live Music with Carmen Cancél & Jainardo Batista

Puerto Rican musicians singer/ percussionist Jainardo Batista of “Buena Vista Social Club” and soprano Carmen Cancél join forces with Leadlights Ensemble for an unforgettable event of music and storytelling, featuring “One Sweet Song” by Jyoti Gapal, ill. by Sonia Sanchez.

Rising in the Heights is a festival of free outdoor public arts performances curated by Leadlights Ensemble in partnership with Word Up Community Bookshop. The festival celebrates the rich artistic contributions of Latinx and Black cultures and promotes children’s literacy through music and bilingual storytelling. Free copies of the featured book will be available.

This project is made possible in part with funds from UMEZ Arts Engagement, supported by the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone (UMEZ); and Creative Engagement, supported by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA) in partnership with the City Council and the Howard Gilman Foundation. UMEZ Arts Engagement and Creative Engagement are administered by LMCC.