LIT Youngstown Fall Literary Festival
October 18 @ 7:00 pm EDT
Lit Youngstown’s 8th annual Fall Literary Festival will be held October 17-19, 2024. As part of the conference, three evening events will be taking place around Youngstown. These events are free and open to the public.
A Gathering In event will be held October 17, 2024 at 7:00pm at the McDonough Museum featuring a live musical performance by the Tongue-in-Groove Band. The band features Al Moses on guitar, Nick Marino on bass, Michelle Clark on Percussion, Nancy Redd-McNiece on flute and vocals, Ray McNiece on rhythm guitar and vocals, as well as poets Michael Loderstadt, Diana Lueptow and Raja Belle Freeman. After the opening, the band will accompany open mic readers.
On Friday, October 18, 2024 at 7:00pm, a keynote reading by Hanif Abdurraquib will take place at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Youngstown Rayen Early College High School senior Lyric Saulsberry, winner of the 2024 CityVerse, will open with her winning poetry. Hanif Abdurraqib is a poet, essayist, and cultural critic from Columbus, Ohio. His poetry has been published in Muzzle, Vinyl, PEN American, and various other journals. His essays and music criticism have been published in The FADER, Pitchfork, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
A reading featuring authors Ama Codjoe and Rachel Swearingen will be held at the Tyler History Center on Saturday October 19, 2024 at 7:00pm. Ama Codjoe is the author of Bluest Nude (Milkweed Editions, 2022), winner of the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, and finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Poetry. Rachel Swearingen is the author of the story collection How to Walk on Water and Other Stories, which received the New American Press Fiction Prize, and was named the 2021 Chicago Writers Association Book of the Year.
Lit Youngstown is a literary arts nonprofit with programs for writers, readers, and those who love a good story. More information is available at www.LitYoungstown.org.
