Don’t Miss the Coney Island Book Fair!

April 23 being World Book Day, it seemed the ideal time to let you know about the upcoming Coney Island Book Fair, taking place at Coney Island USA on May 10!

All hail Lady Aye (Ilyse Carter) for hatching this great new book fair, and organizing it! I’ll be selling and signing copies of all of my books:

No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous(2005)

Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube (2013)

Rose’s Royal Midgets and Other Little People of Vaudeville(2020)

The Marx Brothers Miscellany: A Subjective Appreciation of the Worlds Greatest Comedy Team(2024),

along with CDs from Archeophone Records for which I’ve written the liner notes, including:

Nat M. Wills: The Famous Tramp Comedian(2007)

Van and Schenck: The Pennant Winning Battery of Songland(2012)

Joe Weber and Lew Fields: The Mike and Meyer Files (2019).

There are several panels taking place, but I especially want to promote the one taking place at 4pm, as I will be the one moderating it! Writing the Bally: Sideshow as a Main Character gathers three masters of the uncanny: James Taylor of Shocked and Amazed, Jim Moore of Vaudevisuals, author/illustrator Venessa V. Kelley, and Dawn Raffel (The Strange Case of Dr. Couney). Together, they’ll explore how curiosity, the grotesque, and the unexpected shape the stories we tell—and why we can’t look away.

My wife, artist Carolyn Raship will be offering her own eye-candy merch. Others on site that day will be John Strausbaugh of the New York Press, friend and YA author Sarah Porter, burlesque Renaissance woman Jo Weldon,Jonny Porkpie et al. It’s going to be booktastic blow-out you won’t want to miss. Come for the book festival, stay for the amusement parks, beach, and side show!

For more on the Coney Island Book Fair go here.

For more on Coney Island USA go here.