Lit Fest 2025

“Live in the layers, not on the litter,” Stanley Kunitz writes in his poem, “The Layers.” Through cultivating a practice of mindful writing, we can bring greater curiosity to the layers of our lives and more vivid, compelling, and powerful writing to the page. Writing itself can be its own path of mindfulness, training us to open our peripheral vision wider as we learn to listen to and glimpse what wants to be said. We’ll engage in some short writing and meditation exercises, and we’ll talk about writing to grow our freedom, gratitude, courage, and resilience.

Come with an open mind, leave with pages and pages (and pages) of fresh writing! In this generative class, our magical box of props, prompts, and writing activities will infuse your writing with new energy, sending you in exciting new directions. Exercises will be in 3-5 minute sprints, each inspired by a different source of inspiration to explore. Open to writers of all genres who are looking for inspiration and fun.

The art of making satisfying villains, and the art of saying something new about bad, banal acts—all this can be tricker than it appears. How do we capture the reality of sinister characters without caricature? How do we dramatize bad behavior without glamorizing it or sermonizing, charting a course between theology and pathology? When is it worth separating bad people from bad acts? How do we steer clear of stereotypes? With so much real-life villainy afoot, with readers turning to books both for solace and for answers, these questions feel urgent as ever. Let's have a look at what successful stories have done, and how they've done it, and let's try a bunch of exercises together to make an old problem new.

Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.

Hear your favorite visiting author perform their recent works. Shop at the Lit Fest pop-up bookstore operated by The Bookies and get your book signed afterward.