Story by By Roxanne Patel Shepelavy, The Philadelphia Citizen
One of the biggest events of last fall’s author event series put on by the Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation was with former President Bill Clinton, who spoke to a sold-out crowd about his post-presidency life as described in his new book, Citizen: My Life After the White House.
It’s always a big deal when a president comes to speak. But there was something even more gratifying about this event, according to Daniel Blank, the library foundation’s new managing director of public events. Clinton did only five talks to promote his book. The night before, he was in New York at the Beacon Theater, which can seat 2,900 people; the night after, he went to D.C. to DAR Constitution Hall, with a capacity of 3,700. The main branch of the Free Library? It can fit 380 guests.
“The fact that he was willing to come to our 380-seat auditorium really speaks to what we’re able to accomplish here,” Blank says. “These events are incredibly intimate; even if you’re in the very last row, you are having a very close up experience with the author. That’s part of what makes it so appealing, not just to patrons and audience members, but to the authors themselves, that they get to have these really incredible interactions with audiences and this close engagement.”