Thomas Wolfe. Walt Whitman. Norman Mailer. Jennifer Egan. Brooklyn is big when it comes to literary lights. That’s why it comes as no surprise that the borough is throwing a big party this Sunday, September 22, from 10 AM to 6 PM: The Brooklyn Book Festival.

The festival is billed as the “largest free literary event in New York City” and “the Northeast’s largest book festival. All in all it sounds like the joint will be jumping! If you’re anywhere nearby, you might want to check it out (for full details, visit: brooklynbookfestival.org).

There are tons of events planned at clubs, bookstores, parks, and libraries across Brooklyn: readings, films, children’s activities, panels, writing and marketing workshops — you name it. And scores of writers are slated to share their words, ideas, obsessions, and enthusiasms. Among them: EL Doctorow (Ragtime); Jamaica Kincaid (See Now Then); Claire Messud (The Woman Upstairs); Column McCann (Transatlantic); Tom Wolfe (Back to Blood); and Meg Wolitzer (The Interestings).

Brooklyn is an eclectic sort of place and as you might expect the literary themes you’ll find represented casts a wide net. On the agenda: everything from war, motherhood, censorship, memoir writing, marketing, and young love to government surveillance, toxic food, and empty calories.

I just love the idea of tons of authors and readers, parents and kids, editors and publishers, poets and prose stylists all coming together to celebrate words and writing. Last year’s event attracted 40,000 people. It’s just totally inspiring to me to think that all over the world, whether it’s the Edinborough Book Festival (wow, this is one I really want to go to!) or “New York is Book Country” or the Brooklyn Book Festival, that people are going to spend happy hours rambling among books and writers. How wonderful is that? Write on!