We’re just about out of renewals on the book of 2024. Fortunately, a new release called 2025 is just around the corner.As we prepare to pen another exciting year, let us look back at some highlights from Baltimore’s literary scene in 2024.BBF is Back Greenmount Avenue streamed with readers and fans of literary arts on the weekend of Sept. 28 and 29 as the Baltimore Book Festival was held for the first time since 2019. Why Waverly after all those years on the waterfront? The three-block area from 30th to 32nd Streets is a hub for bookstores, home to Red Emma’s, Normals, Book Thing, and Urban Reads, with Bird in Hand just a hop and skip away. This year’s event featured three stages, over a hundred authors and local exhibitors and food vendors galore. Let’s hope BBF can keep the momentum going since the festival will have new leadership for 2025. The city terminated its contract with Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts (BOPA).Chad Helton will be the next president and CEO of the Enoch Pratt Free Library. (Courtesy photo)Life at the LibraryThis fall, the inspiring Chad Helton took over as president and CEO of Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library, bringing 15 years of library leadership experience, a personal history that includes a period of homelessness, and a belief that a library can be “whatever you need it to be.” Since then, a revolutionary new branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Pigtown – including 21 mixed-income apartments, a park and a playing field in addition to the library proper – has begun construction. CityLit Keeps On Keepin’ On In addition to partnering to produce the re-invented Baltimore Book Festival (see above), this year Carla Du Pree’s powerhouse organization put on a packed calendar of events promoting a diverse range of voices. In April, a weekend-long conference called “Dismantling the Culture of Silence” was produced in collaboration with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Chesapeake Shakespeare Company.  “As much as we can, CityLit strives to build meaningful connections through poetry, literature, and song. What a joy to behold young promise and aging wisdom, transpoetics, and voices that won’t be silenced in a singular event like our festival,” says Du Pree.Baltimore Literary Dynasty The poster for the Apple TV+ limited series “Lady in the Lake,” based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Baltimore author Laura Lippman. Image courtesy of Apple TV+.Ta-Nehisi Coates was on hand in November at the 75th National Book Awards ceremony in New York City to present his father, W. Paul Coates, with the 2024 Literarian Award for Outstanding Service to the American Literary Community. According to an article in Publishers Weekly, the elder Coates began his literary career in 1972 when, after leading the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party for several years, he established a prison literacy program. He opened a bookstore in his basement which evolved into the Baltimore-based publishing house Black Classic Press.“Lady” Keeps City Afloat There were plenty of locals watching and cheering when the “Lady in the Lake” television series released this year on Apple TV+ with Natalie Portman in the starring role. According to the website Technical.ly and the Maryland Department of Commerce, “The series, filmed in Baltimore and based on The New York Times bestselling novel by local author and journalist Laura Lippman, generated more than $100 million for the state and looped in 2,456 local businesses.”Waters Department In April, we learned that Aubrey Plaza had been cast to star in the film adaptation of John Waters’ debut novel “Liarmouth,” the wild story of a Baltimore grifter named Marsha Sprinkle. With this multi-awarded star attached, it seemed certain the project would find funding. But bad news, campers: in November, Waters told the Houston Chronicle it’s a no-go and he has moved on to other pies in the sky.John Waters’ first novel, “Liarmouth: A Feel-Bad Romance.” Credit: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Book Ban Update While a national organization cleverly disguising itself as “Moms for Liberty” led book banning efforts in several Maryland counties (e.g. Baltimore County, Carroll County, Howard County, etc.), people who actually support liberty celebrated the signing of a new Maryland law that limits book banning by Gov. Wes Moore. Here’s a story on it from WYPR. However, our kids are not yet completely safe from those would block access to beloved titles —several ban-friendly school board candidates won (or came close to winning) their races in Maryland. Local Authors Shine Two Baltimoreans earned the coveted star from Kirkus Reviews for their new books this year. Of The Play’s The Thing, Fifty Years Of Yale Repertory Theatre (1966-2016), by James Magruder, the Kirkus reviewer wrote “Bringing his encyclopedic knowledge, his delightful vocabulary, and his witty, exquisitely wrought prose style to bear, Magruder offers a wide-ranging class not just in Yale Rep, but in the history and culture of the theater.” The industry publication also raved about Susan Muaddi Daraj’s novel-in-stories Behind You Is The Sea, set in Baltimore’s Palestinian immigrant community. This “moving portrait of Palestinian families caught between the pressures of the Old World and the New” will be out in paperback next month.To read more about Baltimore-adjacent books published in 2024, flip through the Baltimore Writers Club archive, which features Baltimore writers talking to other Baltimore writers about their new books. Among the highlights this year were Dave K on Tim Paggi; Katie Cortese on Marian Crotty; Liz Hazen on Rebecca Galli, Danielle Ariano, and Judith Kirummeck; Susi Wyss on Antje Rauwerda; Michael Downs on Michael Tager; and Josh Cole on Bob Parsons.