PHOTO BY LAURA MARIE DUNCAN

(MONTCLAIR, NJ) --Broadway legend Chita Rivera will kick off the seventh annual Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival on Thursday May 4, 2023. Chita will discuss her long-awaited memoir Chita: A Memoir with celebrated stage and screen actress and Montclair local Laura Benanti.

Tickets cost $35/55 and include a pre-signed copy of the book. Tickets are available for purchase online.

The festival will be held from Wednesday May 3 to Monday May 8, with Festival Day on Saturday May 6, 2023, and feature student readings, book talks, discussion panels, children’s activities, a community session on banned books, and the always popular Poetry Café. 

Other confirmed authors include Margo Jefferson, Deb Perelman, Mary Beth Keane, Mary Louise Kelly, DT Max, Neil Baldwin, Jai Chakrabarti, Amy Poeppel, Kwame Alexander, and more!

“Now more than ever, Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival is committed to bringing authors to Montclair to discuss their books in a welcoming environment,” said Marcia Marley, Festival Chair.

The majority of events are free and will be held in person either outside in tents or in the Montclair Public Library and the First Congregational Church. 

S2G’s Montclair Literary Festival is the premier literary festival in New Jersey. Since its inception seven years ago, the festival has attracted acclaimed authors including Elizabeth Alexander, Jennifer Egan, Don Winslow, Trevor Noah, Patti Smith, Malcolm Gladwell, Isabel Allende, Henry Winkler, Douglas Stuart, Don Lemon, Jane Fonda, Paul Krugman, Erik Larson, Colm Tóibín, Alan Cumming, Min Jin Lee, Chelsea Clinton, Salman Rushdie, and Paul Auster. 

Montclair-based Succeed2gether launched S2G’s Montclair Literary Festival in 2017 to promote literacy and reading for all, and to celebrate reading, literature, and Montclair’s vibrant and diverse literary scene. S2G’s Montclair Literary Festival raises funds and awareness for the work of Succeed2gether, a non-profit organization that addresses unequal access to educational resources by providing free, high-quality enrichment and academic programs and a post-high-school pathway to children in need from Montclair and Essex County, New Jersey.