Annual Zine Bazaar/Radical pavilion
Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts
We weren't cool enough to have a zine in high school or college, so this mid-Atlantic zinester showcase (noon-6 p.m. Friday) makes us feel a bit more awesome. Speaking of awesome, we love the Radical Bookfair pavilion, which this year boasts chats covering such subjects as "Homegrown Resistance to Mountaintop Removal," "Voices of Popular Power in Argentina" and "Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis." If Tea Partiers wanted to crash the Baltimore Book Festival, this is where they'd head. Friday-Sunday, Monument Circle East
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Altered Book Workshop
Enoch Pratt Free Library
Pratt Library staffers don't just monitor book-borrowing -- they know how to turn books into works of art. It's literary origami, and they'll show you the ropes. 6-8:30 p.m. Friday; 2-4:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Urbanite Tent
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Wes Moore
The Baltimore Sun
Johns Hopkins University graduate Wes Moore's book, "The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates," is gripping stuff. It's the side-by-side story of the author Wes Moore (the first African-American Rhodes Scholar from Hopkins) and the "other" Wes Moore, who was serving a life sentence in jail when the author was about to Rhodes it up. How do two men with the same name, both from Baltimore and both raised by single moms, take such different paths? You'll be riveted. 2:30 p.m. Saturday, The Literary Salon, East Park
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Lip Smack Spoken Word
Walt Whitman, Library of Congress
Kim Roberts' "Lip Smack: A History of Spoken Word Poetry in DC," comprehensively documents the history of the performance art in the nation's capital -- but also in Baltimore. Lip Smack also features performances by brave slam poets. Side note: Yes, this is a photo of Walt Whitman. And yes, he never did slam poetry. But if slam poetry had been around when he was, we'd bet Whitman would be on board. 5:30 p.m. Friday, Festival Stage, South Park
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Michele Norris
Pantheon
The host of NPR's "All Things Considered" tackles "the hidden conversation on race" in America in her new work, "The Grace of Silence." Try to be more timely, Michele. 2:30 p.m. Sunday, The Literary Salon, East Park
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