The CityLit Festival, a day-long celebration of literature, brings a literary feast to the region with 20 sessions offering panels, readings, informational sessions, and craft intensives by writers, editors, and publishing professionals. The event features over 80 poets and writers, placing emerging writers on the same platforms as established ones. It offers one-on-one 30-minute critiques in every genre; a Keynote speaker; a Master class with a prominent author; and information on publishing and funding opportunities for writers. CityLit does not shy away from covering challenging ‘hot’ topics of concern to the region and beyond. We honor a multitude of voices and multi-cultural experiences, and boast award-winning authors from near and far. All for the love of the written word. The Festival is free — unheard of these days — but you best bring your energy.

The bustling Literary Marketplace provides exhibit space to the area’s diverse community of small presses, self-published authors, literary journals, and organizations serving writers and readers alike. Baltimore magazine named CityLit Festival “a can’t miss event on the city’s cultural scene” and “the best place to nurture your inner writer.”

This year’s Festival highlights creator and Pulitzer Prize-winning, investigative journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones of The 1619 Project: The New Origin Story and Born On The Water, which was introduced in 2019 in a major multimedia initiative in The New York Times Magazine to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery. Hannah-Jones brings this national, invigorating conversation about the contributions of Black Americans and how the legacy of slavery informs our lives, to Baltimore with author and historian Martha S. Jones from Johns Hopkins University. This partnership event is designed to engage and bring educators, community leaders, students and creatives into a mission of discovery, embarking on conversations during and beyond the Festival.