May 7, 2021, 12:47pm
The 215 Literary Arts Festival—in partnership with Rutgers University Camden, The Stables, and Laternfish Press—is bringing together a band of writers, editors, musicians, and DJ librarians to celebrate the vibrant literary arts scene in the Philadelphia area, from May 10th to 15th. The Festival, founded in 2001, has hosted an array of literary talent—emerging, regional, nationally-acclaimed, mid-career—in a series of events that include literary crawls, book fairs, author readings, literary-informed musical events, and book-themed dance parties.
This year, the 215 Festival will be completely virtual (via Zoom) and is free and open to the public. You will have the opportunity to sit in on author readings, panel discussions, and attend a virtual dance party DJ’d by some of your favorite writers! According to the event details, live transcription (closed captioning) will be available for all gatherings.
Seriously, you don’t want to miss this. On Monday, the Festival will kick off with a conversation between Diane McKinney Whetstone, author of Tumbling, and James Rahn, the founder of the Rittenhouse Writer’s Group, about writing of and in Philadelphia. There will be a panel on Asian American letters with Tracy O’Neill, Sonya Chung, and Kevin Nguyen; a panel on world-building in YA Literature; a poetry workshop led by contributors of a forthcoming anthology about poetics and motherhood; and many many more events! Must I say more? Be sure to sign-up for each gathering here.