CityLit Fest 8 is Sure to be Great

Mark your calendar for April 16—that’s the date for the 8th annual CityLit Festival. Once again the CityLit Project partners with Enoch Pratt Free Library to present the annual CityLit Festival, Baltimore's day-long celebration of literature. Don't miss what Baltimore magazine has called "a can't miss event on the city's cultural scene."

Tracks will chug its way into the festival. Look for the Tracks table, where you’ll be able to pick up some Tracks swag—a card, postcard, press kit, press release, or maybe even a train pencil or bumper sticker.

Headliners of this year’s CityLit Festival include Danielle Evans, Andrei Codrescu, and Jaimy Gordon. Also there will be Jessica Anya Blau, Ron Tanner, Elissa Weissman, Susi Wyss, and a Maryland Writers Association presentation of the new anthology Life in Me Like Grass on Fire.

This busy festival features several concurrent programs and a bustling Literary Marketplace that showcases Baltimore’s rich literary community.

The event takes place at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in downtown Baltimore, 400 Cathedral Street, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Learn more at http://www.citylitproject.org/.

The Best of Baltimore

Baltimore Magazine has given City Sages the "Best of Baltimore" award!

City Sages is the first book published by CityLit Press.

Congratulations to editor Jen Michalski, cover designer Justin Sirois, CityLit founder and executive director Gregg Wilhelm, and all the "sages" who contributed their literary art to the anthology.

Pick up a copy of the August issue of Baltimore. Then, pick up a copy of City Sages.

Why not get your copy at Baltimore’s third best bookstore, Atomic Books (which ranked after the power chains)? And read it at Baltimore’s best bar, The Brewer’s Art (which Esquire rated the best bar in America). You won’t be able to watch the movie version at Baltimore’s third best theater, because The Senator has closed its doors. But Patterson, Federal Hill, and Oriole Parks are all open for your reading pleasure.

See the “Best of Baltimore” lists for yourself at the following link.

www.baltimoremagazine.net/bestofpoll

Bestseller Elizabeth Kostova at CityLit Festival

Bestselling author Elizabeth Kostova comes to Baltimore on April 17 as part of the seventh annual CityLit Festival. Dubbed "a can't miss event on the city's cultural scene," the free, day-long festival is presented by CityLit Project and Enoch Pratt Free Library.

Kostova, best known for her smash debut The Historian, returns to the New York Times Bestsellers List with The Swan Thieves. Kostova was recently featured on NPR and in the current issue of Poets & Writers magazine, which highlights her fiction seminar in Bulgaria.

Also profiled in the latest P&W, novelist Sam Lipsyte. His newest release, The Ask, has garnered rave reviews including a starred review in Publishers Weekly. Lipsyte will appear as part of the 510 Reading Series program during the festival.

Maryland Poet Laureate Stanley Plumly makes his first CityLit Festival appearance. Plumly's latest collection, Old Heart, was a finalist for the National Book Award. He'll be joined by Laura Shovan, winner of the first Harriss Poetry Prize for her chapbook Mountain, Log, Salt, and Stone.

Actress, daytime Emmy Award nominee, and NAACP Image Award winner Victoria Rowell debuts her first novel, Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva.

The Baltimore Sages reading features local favorites Maud Casey, Michael Downs, Lia Purpura, Rosalia Scalia, Ron Tanner, and Rafael Alvarez.

(Note that Rafael Alvarez will also be appearing at the next Lit & Art event at the Watermark Gallery on April 25; more details to come soon!)

Returning favorite features of the festival include Poet's Ink workshops, Poetry by Place readings, the Maryland Humanities Council's "Letters About Literature" ceremony, and the ever-popular busting Literary Marketplace.

The Literary Marketplace features local authors, organizations, workshops, literary journals, and more. I’ll be there at the Flightless Goose booth.

The free festival takes place from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 17, at the Enoch Pratt Central Library, 400 Cathedral Street, downtown Baltimore.

More details and a complete schedule can be found on the CityLit website.
www.citylitproject.org/index.cfm?page=news&newsid=49

My Guest Spot in Baltimore Sun’s Read Street

As a panelist at tomorrow’s CityLit Festival, I was asked by the editors of the Baltimore Sun’s Read Street to submit a guest column.

In my spot, I wrote about my own history with the CityLit Project — my own introduction to Baltimore’s thriving literary scene. I also talk a bit about my book, Flightless Goose, which is being featured in the exhibitor’s booth all day long, is available at CityLit’s official bookseller, Barnes & Noble, and is one of the “fist books” featured in one of the panel discussions.

The CityLit Project (and the CityLit Festival in particular) is one of the reasons for Baltimore’s lively literary community. If you love literature, you won’t want to miss tomorrow’s day-long event.

Read my column in the Baltimore Sun’s Read Street.

CityLit Fest Set to be Best Yet!

Baltimore has long been known as "The City that Reads." And it is true that there is a thriving literary community in city. If you need evidence of this (or just want to have a great day), look no further than this Saturday’s CityLit Festival VI.

If you love books and literature, you won’t want to miss the CityLit Festival at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street. You’ll have the chance to see last year’s winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Literature, Junot Diaz, and last year’s National Book Award for Poetry winner Mark Doty. There are sessions on what’s becoming of our book culture, lifelong literature — too much to mention here! Plus, exhibitors will be showing off their books, literary journals, services, and all things bookish in the exhibitors’ hall all day long.

I’ll be there for a session on “first books, new authors,” and my children’s book, Flightless Goose, will be in the exhibitor’s hall all day. There really is something for everyone!

Hope to see you there. If you love books, it’s a great way to “get lit” this Saturday.

Learn more (and see a full schedule of events) at CityLit’s website.

www.citylitproject.org/index.php?q=node/262