In September 2019, WNYC’s daily culture program “All Of It with Alison Stewart” launched an original book club, “Get Lit with All Of It,” as a means to help us connect with existing listeners and reach a new audience of book lovers via live events in New York Public Radio’s The Greene Space. Thanks to the team at The Greene Space, and our partners at the New York Public Library (NYPL), “Get Lit” transitioned seamlessly into a virtual book club, creating a “night out” cultural experience for New Yorkers and reaching a larger audience than ever before.
“Get Lit” features well-established authors (including Laura Lippman, Jacqueline Woodson, James McBride and Colson Whitehead) alongside exciting debut novelists. Our books feature New York as a central or secondary setting and focus on stories that center marginalized voices and tackle issues of social justice, from an abusive segregated reform school in The Nickel Boys to teen sexual abuse in My Dark Vanessa. But our books also contain joy and triumph from the humor of James McBride to the beautiful poetry of coming of age in Jacqueline Woodson’s Red at the Bone.
Book club participants follow “Get Lit” on Instagram at @allofitwnyc, where we engage audiences through polls, fun facts and snapshots of listeners reading along with us. Through our partnership with NYPL, each month’s book can be accessed free using the NYPL app, with thousands of extra e-copies made available for a free three-week download.
Each month, Alison Stewart hosts free livestream book club events with an interview and Q&A with the featured author, streamed live and available on-demand on The Greene Space website and YouTube page. Each event also features musical guests representing a diversity of backgrounds and genres and experts who put the themes of the books in a cultural context.