Detroit Festival of Books (aka: Detroit Bookfest) and the Detroit Public Library have partnered to bring you some incredible speakers for Bookfest weekend!
This event is FREE and open to the general public.
The live talks & presentations will be held inside the Detroit Public Library on Friday, July 18th, 2025 from 11:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Some of the talks will be moderated by the amazing Briana Rice, award-winning Detroit journalist and Outlier Media’s civic life reporter.
PBS Books will be filming the event.
Built in 1921, the Detroit Public Library is 3-floors, 420,000-square-feet and serves over 900,000 visitors annually. The library also has 23 branches spread across the city.
Featured Presenters
Mark Crilley
Detroit native and Michigan-based manga illustrator, comic creator, and author. He is the creator of Miki Falls, Brody’s Ghost, and YouTube instructional videos viewed by millions of people around the world.
Dr. Ricky Ross
Nicknamed Freeway, Ross is a former Los Angeles drug lord who taught himself to read while incarcerated, became an author and transformed his entire life.
Curtis Chin
Detroit native, award-winning author and co-founder of the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
The AstroTwins
Ophira and Tali are Detroit natives and professional astrologers with a large following and multiple books.
Occurring concurrently will be a variety of talks from our Supporting Presenters. There will be directional signage inside the library of how and where to find all the rooms.
Supporting Presenters
Melissa Kaelin
Founder of the Michigan Aurora Chasers, Melissa F. Kaelin has helped thousands of people catch the Northern Lights for the first time. Originally a poet and short story writer, she is the author of “Beyond the 45th Parallel: The Beginner’s Guide to Chasing Aurora in the Mid-latitudes,” as well as a blog and many digital guides. She has been chasing the Aurora for over 13 years, which has led her to pursue Aurora tours in Alaska, Canada’s Northwest Territories, Iceland and Finland. She is an acclaimed speaker, co-founder of the Aurora Summit, a columnist for Amateur Astronomy Magazine, an Staff Expert for the University of Michigan Alumni Association, and a local Aurora tour guide, leading Live Chases in Michigan every year. She also designed the website for the Michigan Aurora Chasers, a community of nearly 130,000 people who chase the Northern Lights.
Vanessa Ivy Rose
According to updated MLB statistics and five Hall of Fame inductions, Turkey Stearnes is one of the all-time greats, yet many people have never heard his name. In her book entitled “Hall of Fame DNA: The Legacy of Norman Turkey Stearnes”, Vanessa Ivy Rose (author, podcast host of ABC’s “Reclaimed: The Forgotten League” and educator) gives the play-by-play to inform and inspire audiences about her grandfather’s greatness (both on and off the field).
Alex B. Hill
Alex is the director of data and community research at the Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation and an adjunct professor at Wayne State University. He started the website DETROITography (detroitography.com) in an attempt to bring together various Detroit cartographers and their great work. He is also the author of Detroit in 50 Maps (Belt Publishing). He lives in Detroit.
Barbara Henning
Poet, writer, and Detroit native, Barbara Henning is the author of eighteen books of poetry and fiction, as well as a series of twenty artists’ books combining poetry with photography.
Official Moderator
Briana Rice
Briana Rice is Outlier Media’s civic life reporter. She’s leading the outlet’s election coverage this year. Prior to that, Briana worked for three years at Michigan Public covering criminal justice, city council and other issues facing Detroit. She also led the station’s book club Michigan Public Reads. She was named Young Journalist of the Year in 2022 by the Detroit Society of Professional Journalists. She’s also been selected for fellowships with the National Press Foundation and the Association of Independents in Radio. Briana was previously a breaking news reporter at the Cincinnati Enquirer. Before that, she worked at WXIX in Cincinnati as a digital producer and assignment editor. She studied journalism and digital media at the University of Cincinnati. When she’s not working, Briana enjoys cooking, reading, and writing poems, essays and short stories. She lives in Detroit with her cat, Tatiana, and her dog, Bertie.
Detroit Bookfest Homepage
https://dev.detroitbookfest.com/
Contact
https://dev.detroitbookfest.com/contact-us/
https://www.facebook.com/DetroitBookfest
