Flint Festival of Writers 2019 featured author LaTashia Perry ( Photo Credit 770 Photography)
It has a new name, a new date, a new location, new talent and a fresh line-up of programs.
The Flint Festival of Writers – formerly the Flint Literary Festival—will be held Sept. 13-14 in the Ferris Wheel, 615 Saginaw St. in downtown Flint.
As a part of the festival’s ongoing mission to create accessible, engaging opportunities for writers of all ages, abilities and levels of experience, this year’s event will feature many of the same events attendees have come to love as well as a few new surprises.
Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan – Flint English Department, Gothic Funk Press and East Village Magazine, the free event will be headlined by LaTashia M. Perry, the Flint-born author of successful children’s books including Hair Like Mine, Skin Like Mine and, most recently, Dreams Like Mine. Perry will read from her work at 5 p.m. Sept. 14. A time to meet the author and purchase books will follow.
Starts during September Art Walk
The event will begin on Friday, Sept.13, at the Ferris Wheel with a kick-off party of music, hands-on activities, readings and refreshments during the Flint Art Walk.
Kelsey Ronan, Jonah Mixon-Webster also featured
Jonah Mixon-Webster
On Saturday, the festival will continue with a full slate of workshops and panels, including opportunities to learn from notable Flint authors Kelsey Ronan, whose essay on the Flint Water Crisis, “Blood and Water,” was honored as a notable essay in Best American Essays 2017, and Jonah Mixon-Webster, author of the poetry collection Stereo(TYPE), which won Ahsahta Press’s Sawtooth Prize. Mixon-Webster was also recently awarded the 2019 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for Poetry.
Kelsey Ronan
Book Fair, write-ins, open mic
A book fair on the first floor of The Ferris Wheel will take place between noon and 4 p.m. Saturday, and a write-in space will provide a place for visitors to get their creative juices flowing in the company of other creatives.
The festival also will feature the launch of the 2019 Teen Writers Anthology by students of the Flint Teen / Tween Writers Workshop. The anthology is a collection of poetry, fiction, essays, and other writing by young people 11 to 18 from Flint and Genesee County involved in the workshop, a program of the Flint Public Library. The student authors will be present and read from their work.
An after-party and open mic following the festivities on Saturday will convene at 7 p.m. at Totem Books, 620 W. Court St.
The festival’s mission, according to Flint writer and festival co-founder Connor Coyne, is to “support the literary tradition and writing done in and about Flint and cultivate dynamic resources and experiences for Flint writers and readers.”
Others on the organizing committee are local writers Bob Campbell and Katie Curnow; UM-Flint English Department Chair James Schirmer; Buick City poet Sarah Carson; and East Village Magazine editor Jan Worth-Nelson.
To learn more about this year’s event, visit www.flintwriters.org.
From the Flint Festival of Writers committee, including EVM Editor Jan Worth-Nelson.
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