The NuLu district on East Market Street is alive and bustling. Witness to amazing growth over the past few years, from the success of First Friday Trolley Hops to the burst of new galleries, boutique shops and trendy restaurants like Toast, Wiltshire on Market, The Mayan Cafe and now Garage, NuLu has become a scene and a place to be seen. It’s this kind of energy and enthusiasm that Jen Woods hopes to draw on when she and Louisville Literary Arts (LLA) bring Louisville’s first literary festival and book fair, The Writer’s Block, to NuLu.
The festival, scheduled for the weekend of October 14th, will kick-off on Friday night with LLA’s reading series, InKY, at The Bard’s Town, then the party will move to Writer’s Block headquarters, Creation Gardens at 725 East Market Street for a full day of speakers, writing panels, workshops in fiction, poetry, non-fiction and letterpress, and a book fair sporting the wares of 20 publishers from Nashville to Chicago and right here in Louisville. “I’m a total festival virgin!” Woods admits, however, she has managed to win the support of local businesses, universities, and writers to create a free event that is open to the pubic.
Gill Holland was one of the first people to support the idea for the festival. He introduced Woods to the business owners in NuLu who opened their doors to Woods, LLA and the festival. After Holland was on board, support poured in from around town including sponsorship from Louisville Magazine, Spalding University’s MFA Program in Writing, Zephyr Gallery, Swanson Reed Contemporary Gallery and Butler Books. The University of Louisville Creative Writing Program and Flame Run Gallery are sponsoring the keynote reading.
Birth of a Festival
The Writer’s Block is not just a Jen Woods production. The festival, she believes, is “meeting an organic need that existed in this community to celebrate the literary arts.” When Woods joined the board of LLA, the president of the organization, writer Lynnell Edwards, was already considering the idea of a literary festival. Woods was tired of traveling to the East Coast for book fairs with her company Typecast Publishing when she saw so much talent right here in Louisville, so she pitched the idea of combining a literary festival and “a kickass book fair” to Edwards, the LLA board, and a number of people at Louisville zines and small presses. The reaction was emphatically, “Let’s do it! There’s no one stopping us.”
Workshops and Speakers and Books
The keynote speaker for the inaugural Writer’s Block Festival is Kentucky writer, Will Lavender, best-selling author of “Dominance and Obedience”. This is a free event, however it is ticketed. Tickets can be obtained online at the LLA website. In addition to Lavender, The Writer’s Block will feature a bevy of Kentucky writers reading from their work or in conversation about the business of writing. Included on the bill are best-selling author Alanna Nash, John Burnham Schwartz, author of “Reservation Road” and “Northwest Corner”, Kirby Gann, author of “Our Napoleon in Rags”, and Kentucky Poet Laureate Maureen Morehead.
At the book fair you will find a mix of traditional publishers like Sarabande Books, university presses such as Fleur de Lis of Spalding University and also small, independent and experimental presses such as Louisville’s own “Good Will Zine”, “Forklift, Ohio” out of Cincinnati and “Rabbit Catastrophe Press” out of Lexington. Additionally, if you are a writer and would like instruction and feedback on your work, the festival is hosting genre workshops led by accomplished local writers for $20. For $40, Hound Dog Press will conduct the letterpress workshop for anyone interested in learning the mechanics and artistry of hand set type.
Whoop and Holler
Louisville Literary Arts wants to foster the love of reading and writing in the Louisville community. According to Woods, LLA is excited about the festival because she believes it will shout to the Louisville community “Look at how much writing talent and interest there in this city. Look how many accomplished writers we have. Look at how many crazy amazing creative presses we have in our in our area. So often people look to New York for culture. I’m perfectly happy to whoop and holler about the culture we create right here and The Writer’s Block Festival gives us a chance to do that for the first time.” Woods hopes the festival ignites hundreds of inspired conversations, plugs new people into the literary scene and grows the audiences at literary events across town.
The Details
The Writer’s Block Festival will be held October 14-15. Opening night will begin with the InKY Reading Series at The Bard’s Town beginning at 6:30 PM. The festival will continue the following day with workshops, readings, a keynote address from Will Lavender, open mics and a print book fair held at Creation Gardens at 725 East Market Street. Workshops range in price from $20-$40 and pre-registration is required online.
Tickets for the keynote event, as well as a schedule of events and list of book fair vendors are available at the Louisville Literary Arts website: www.louisvilleliteraryarts.org/writersblock.
–Amy Miller
For more information on Louisville’s Literary Scene:
louisvilleliteraryarts.org/inky-reading-series
sarabandebooks.org
spalding.edu/academics/mfa/
carnegieliteracy.org
forkliftohio.com
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