literature festival essay

• Craft and Criticism
• Fiction and Poetry
• News and Culture
• Lit Hub Radio
• Reading Lists

• Literary Criticism
• Craft and Advice
• In Conversation
• On Translation
• Short Story
• From the Novel
• Bookstores and Libraries
• Film and TV
• Art and Photography
• Freeman’s
• The Virtual Book Channel
• Behind the Mic
• Beyond the Page
• The Cosmic Library
• The Critic and Her Publics
• Emergence Magazine
• Fiction/Non/Fiction
• First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing
• The History of Literature
• I’m a Writer But
• Lit Century
• Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre
• Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast
• Write-minded
• The Best of the Decade
• Best Reviewed Books
• BookMarks Daily Giveaway
• The Daily Thrill
• CrimeReads Daily Giveaway

How to Organize a Dozen Global Literary Festivals All at Once

Cherilyn parsons talks to teresa grøtan, director of norway's litfestbergen.

One afternoon back in September, when I was lockdown-weary and stir-crazy, an unexpected opportunity to be part of a Great Literary Escape showed up in my inbox. “I’m writing to invite you to a collaboration involving 12 literary festivals/scenes/houses around the world,” read the email from Teresa Grøtan, a name new to me.

What a lucky day. Norway’s LitFestBergen, directed by Teresa and produced out of the Bergen House of Literature, was organizing a hugely ambitious international collaboration called Literature Live Around the World , involving 12 global lit fests. As Teresa explained, each fest would produce an hourlong program featuring literary luminaries from their respective corners of the world, with the entire event running for 12 hours straight, noon to midnight Norway time, on Friday, February 12, 2021. The whole extravaganza will livestream on partner websites, and a recording will be edited, chaptered, and available to view on some sites, including BABF’s, until Feb. 22.

In addition to LitFestBergen and BABF (we’re representing the United States with a conversation on the activism and innovation of the Bay Area lit scene), the lineup includes festivals and literary houses from Buenos Aires, Dubai, Edinburgh, Jaipur, Kabul, Lagos, Lyon, Perth, Toronto, and Treasure Beach, Jamaica. Juggling time zones as required for live production, Teresa planned the day to start in snowy Norway and end at sunset on Treasure Beach. You can see BABF’s program live at noon Pacific time, Feb. 12, featuring Dave Eggers, Vendela Vida, and Daniel Gumbiner.

I connected with Teresa to ask how she came to create this literary extravaganza.

Cherilyn Parsons: I’m blown away by your ambition of creating this global project, in the midst of a pandemic no less. What was the impetus for creating it?

Teresa Grøtan: When we had the first lockdown in March 2020, I was reflecting on what LitFestBergen offers the audience when we invite international authors to appear at our festival. Honestly I get impatient with the complaints around everything that’s not possible to do, so I thought, what can we do now? And further, what do we actually lose when we get the authors to come to Bergen and put them on our stage here? Well, we can’t take the environment they come from. We lose some of the atmosphere, the feeling, the culture, language, the vibe of the place they are coming from.

I think this recognition had been working in the back of my mind for a while, because I’ve always loved when authors coming to LitFestBergen sent us greetings that we could play to market their events, such as seeing Niillas Holberg from Sápmi (Finland) in the snow and Tishani Doshi from India with her dogs on the beach. So that is what I wanted to experience in this project: how can we got more of where everyone is coming from?

CP: What is your creative vision for LLAW? What do you hope it accomplishes?

TG: The short answer is: I want to bring the world, the people and the literature together. It is a peace project. I want to open up the literary world; I want to bring together with more language, more culture, more understanding. I want everyone to open up their minds to literature that is farther away from their own. I want to open up the publishing industry; I want more publishers to be open and interested in literature they may not immediately “get.” The big problem is that people working in the literature industry are too similar with each other, and when everyone thinks the same way, we lose so much, so many possibilities, so many literary adventures!

CP: U.S. festivals have sometimes been insular, as I’m afraid this country has been in general. But festivals here increasingly are trying to combat that; indeed, I was determined at the outset of the Bay Area Book Festival to go international. That said, it’s much harder to secure funding to bring authors from non-western countries that don’t have budgets to send their authors abroad. How do you feel the LLAW lineup combats that problem?

TG: Geography is important, simply because if it is not, we end up in the West. I am very pleased and honored that well-established, well-known, and respected festivals decided to come onboard this crazy project, but it was very important to me to have all continents and a country like Afghanistan represented. I think we need literature and culture to feel connection with each other and to understand each other as a way to find and preserve peace.

CP: All festival directors know how challenging it can be to translate a creative vision into the complex logistics of putting on a major event with many parts. But what you’ve done with LLAW goes far beyond the usual, and during a pandemic no less. What have been the most challenging parts of making LLAW happen?

TG: I am naïve; I never understand what I go into! I suppose that is a blessing (although not always), because if I had really understood what this would mean in terms of work, people, and finances, honestly I wouldn’t have started it. Logistics is the most challenging part, and I’ve had some truly nerve-wracking moments. But I have to trust people, and my experience is that although people don’t always deliver at the time they say they will, they do deliver in the end.

CP: To present LLAW during this long pandemic, with all the shelter-in-place rules and border closures making it impossible to travel to other countries, is an amazing gift to everyone who loves literature. How has the pandemic made it more difficult to produce LLAW? Or has lockdown helped in some ways?

TG: No, it’s been nothing but purely terrible. My vision was for a live audience. I wanted the audience to connect, to see each other. I wanted “hi!” “hola!” “hello!” to sound across the oceans, across the continents. So it has been an awful low to realize it won’t happen. On top of that, the city of Bergen closed just two days ago [Feb. 7, only three days before LitFestBergen’s launch]. Let’s not go into how it feels.

CP: What has been the most rewarding part of this project for you?

TG: One of the things I wasn’t thinking about, but which is very obvious to me now, is the great value of having each festival stage exactly what they would like to present. This has brought in a richness I couldn’t have dreamt of. When we choose which authors to invite to a regular festival in Bergen, it naturally enough depends on whom we know about and read about; what we are interested in; and also, sadly, is limited to the languages we master (or to languages people we know master). But by asking our partners to create the programs they envision, we’ve brought in authors and voices completely new to us, and I love it! What an incredible richness we are about to see in this program.

CP: You set a theme for LLAW of “generations,” with a focus on youth. Why did you choose this theme?

TG: Yes, I asked everyone what the most interesting young literature in the partner countries was, and what this literature says about that society. I chose “generations” as a theme for the entire LitFestBergen event this year, not only LLAW, because I find it troubling that youth in the West probably will be the very first generation ever with poorer economic prospects than their parents. Ever. Also, the timing for a focus on young literary voices is more pertinent than ever: it is the youth that will bear the brunt of the climate crisis, and now with the COVID-19 crisis, it is the youth that will have to carry the heavy burden that comes with growing inequality inside countries, and also between between rich and poor countries. I am deeply worried about our youth and their prospects.

We have also staged an international essay competition for this year’s LitFestBergen with the topic “My Generation,” and indeed young people are worried. There is a darkness in the essays, a darkness I can’t remember from my own youth.

CP: Some literary festival directors around the world are generous “connectors” of festivals with each other. Sanjoy Roy, who produces the Jaipur Literature Festival, invites directors from around the world to attend that fest, and many of us have become regulars because the experience has been so important in making contacts and planning our international programming. Last year, Isabel Abouhoul and colleagues at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature created the Global Association of Literary Festivals, an amazing resource to foster collaborations and share news. The Edinburgh International Book Festival’s director Nick Barley leads the Word Alliance, a smaller collaborative of festivals. You’re now also a major connector in the international lit fest world. Why do you think it’s important that festivals connect with each other, and how does it feel to play this role?

TG: I’m totally new to this and didn’t know how many of you already knew each other. I’m the new kid in the class, and I guess a very brazen one! It has been so great getting to know everybody, and to feel the buzz and excitement when we all meet on Zoom. It has been a pure joy and thrill to get to meet other festival people around the world. It gives me goosebumps to be able to meet, talk, and connect, and it has been so wonderfully joyous with all the positive feedback. I would never have dared to go on if there weren’t people along the way who said this was a good idea. Really I have been surprised that people thought it was a good idea!

CP: LLAW is nestled within LitFestBergen, which is happening right now. Tell us a bit about that festival, and what your audience’s responses have been to LLAW.

TG: As I mentioned, this city closed down three days ahead of our opening tomorrow night [February 10]. It is devastating, but think about it: we have Literature Live Around the World! Could it be better timing, considering the terrible timing? It is almost unbelievable. We also have a discussion tomorrow entitled “People, Pandemic and Literature,” meant to be a conversation about a time past—and now that too couldn’t be more timely.

I am also very happy about our essay competition. Tomorrow night we are unveiling the winner; we received 550 essays from 90 countries worldwide. I was so surprised because we used only Instagram to promote it. I am also very proud of our large youth program, where the youth themselves are interviewing Norwegian and international authors. They are actually interviewing the American YA author Jason Reynolds tomorrow.

CP: How are you possibly managing to get all this work done?

TG: I love working!

• Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
• Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Cherilyn Parsons

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Popular posts.

Follow us on Twitter

Are We Starving Our Brains by Going Digital?

• RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

Sign Up For Our Newsletters

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Privacy Policy

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

NYPL's World Literature Festival

April 15–30, 2024 | Various Locations

The New York Public Library's World Literature Festival shines a spotlight on books, writers, artists, and thinkers from around the globe and reflects some of the many languages spoken in our city's diverse communities. Join the Library to discover free events and programs, book recommendations, resources, and more for all ages, in a range of world languages! World Literature Festival happens concurrently with NYC's Immigrant Heritage Week (April 14–20).

Reading Recommendations to Celebrate NYPL's World Literature Festival 2024

Find recommendations in world languages curated by our expert librarians, encompassing fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, poetry, and more—for all ages. All of these books are in the Library’s catalog and many are available in multiple formats, including e-books, audiobooks, and accessible editions.

Watch Festival Events Online

Catch up on events from this year's festival! Watch recordings of author talks and multilingual discussions on topics ranging from French graphic novels to disability justice and art activism.

• Food Writing Across Cultures (English) Nasim Alikhani, Abi Balingit, and Kayla Stewart
• Written Work: Poetry Celebrating Labor and the Global City (English) Camonghne Felix, Dorothea Lasky, Emanuel Xavier, and Helena de Groot
• Bandes Desinées Classiques (Français | French) Yann Damezin et Thierry Chavant avec Miriam Bridenne
• Art Activism and Language Justice in Disabled Communities (English) Shayda Kafai, Kay Ulanday Barrett, Lorenzo Van Ness, and Maria Palacios
• Performing Arts as Language (English) Heidi Latsky, Misha Chowdhury, and Arnaldo J. López
• 小说的艺术性与自由表达 | Artistry and Free Expression (普通话 | Mandarin) 严歌苓与马凯琳对话 (Geling Yan with Karen Ma)

Explore All Events

Discover a wide array of free events for all ages in branches and online. From book discussions and film screenings to community cookbook-making and bilingual storytimes, join the Library to celebrate literature in languages from all over the world!

Multilingual Resources at NYPL

The New York Public Library is here for everyone! At our 92 locations across the Bronx, Manhattan, and Staten Island, we welcome speakers and readers of a wide range of languages. The Library is committed to helping everyone navigate our free services and resources for all ages: get a library card, learn about Library offerings, search the catalog, and more in world languages.

• kreyòl ayisyen

Learn a Language for Free with Your Library Card!

From Arabic to Yiddish, start learning more than 70 languages from scratch—free with your library card. 

• Free English Classes
• Mango Languages
• Online Language Conversation Groups
• World Language Articles and Databases

Recommended: Literature in Translation and World Languages

Discover 25 essential titles translated into English, as well as the most checked-out titles in world languages from the Library’s collections!

• Literature in Translation
• Top Checkouts in World Languages

Past World Literature Festival Highlights

Enjoy this series of special author talks and book recommendations from previous festivals.

• 2023 World Literature Festival
• 2022 World Literature Festival
• 2021 World Literature Festival

Get a Library Card

With a library card you get free access to the Library’s wide array of resources—including books, e-books, databases, educational resources, and more in a range of world languages.

Download the NYPL App

Get the power of The New York Public Library, anytime, anywhere. With the NYPL app, you can access everything the Library has to offer from home or while you’re on the go. Find information in a range of world languages.

Get Started with SimplyE

Download SimplyE, the Library's free e-reader app, which makes it easy to borrow e-books and audiobooks from a catalog of more than 300,000 titles. Find information in a range of world languages.

Ask NYPL is the Library's virtual reference and support desk. Have a question? Get in touch via email, chat, phone, or text. Contact us—we're here to help. 

Where possible, we will provide assistance in a range of world languages.

Connect with the Library

Get the latest NYPL events, programs, and more for all ages delivered straight to your inbox, now also available in Español (Spanish).

• NYPL Connect
• NYPL en Español

Help Us Support All New Yorkers

The New York Public Library depends on the support of donors like you to fund our educational resources, job help, community outreach, and more for all New Yorkers. Friends of the Library will be vital in the coming year as we expand access to our resources including bilingual storytimes, ESOL classes, and e-books in world languages. Make a membership gift now and enjoy benefits all year long.

ETSU to hold virtual Spring Literary Festival

JOHNSON CITY – East Tennessee State University’s Spring Literary Festival will be held virtually on Tuesday and Wednesday, April 20-21.

Four well-known authors are featured workshop speakers during the festival, which is sponsored by the Bert C. Bach Written Word Initiative and Department of Literature and Language in ETSU’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Poet and playwright Linda Parsons coordinates “Wordstream,” a weekly radio reading series on Knoxville public radio station WDVX-FM with Stellasue Lee and is the reviews editor at Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel. She has contributed poetry to a number of publications, and her fifth poetry collection, “Candescent,” was published by Iris Press in 2019. She is also the copy editor for Chapter 16, the literary website of Humanities Tennessee, and writes social justice plays for the Flying Anvil Theatre in Knoxville.

In addition to leading a playwriting workshop during the festival, Parsons will give a poetry reading and audience Q&A during the eighth annual Jack Higgs Memorial Reading on Wednesday, April 21, at 7 p.m. This event is named in memory of a longtime faculty member in English at ETSU who was especially noted for his scholarship in the fields of Appalachian and sports literature.

John McNally, who will lead a fiction writing workshop, is the author or editor of 17 books, including the novel “The Book of Ralph” and “The Promise of Failure: One Writer’s Perspective on Not Succeeding.” A new short story collection, “The Fear of Everything,” was published in the fall of 2020. He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, and his reviews and essays have appeared in over 100 publications. Recently, he wrote several screenplays for the Norwegian film company Evil Doghouse. McNally teaches as writer-in-residence at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Sonja Livingston is the author of four books, including the award-winning “Ghostbread” and her latest, “The Virgin of Prince Street.” She has been honored with a number of fellowships and awards for her writing, which appears widely in anthologies and such outlets as Salon, Creative Nonfiction and LitHub. Livingston is an associate professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and teaches in the postgraduate program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She will lead a creative non-fiction workshop during the festival.

Emily Rosko, who will lead a poetry writing workshop, is the award-winning author of the poetry collections “Weather Inventions,” “Rockery” and “Raw Goods Inventory,” and her poetry and essays have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. In addition, she is the editor of “A Broken Thing: Poets on the Line” and poetry editor for Crazyhorse. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Missouri and is associate professor at the College of Charleston and director of the MFA Creative Writing Program.

Also featured in the Spring Literary Festival are the student winners of The Mockingbird awards, a presentation of new writing from ETSU faculty members Dr. Mark Baumgartner and Danielle Nicole Byington, and a public reading and Q&A with McNally, Rosko and Livingston.

For registration or more information, visit the Department of Literature and Language website at etsu.edu/cas/litlang/ or contact Lydia Carr at [email protected] .

Literary Festival

Connections: the 46th annual odu literary festival, october 1 - 5, 2023.

“After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.” — Sayaka Murata

In a time of technological advancements that seem to challenge the very nature of writing and art, we come together to reconnect and reaffirm the transformational and profoundly human act of making and experiencing the written word. Writing or reading, performing or viewing, we reach beyond ourselves and in that process are forever changed. Join us for the 46th Annual ODU Literary Festival, as we celebrate poets, novelists, memoirists, actors, directors and all those who tell the stories that link us together and change the way we understand ourselves and our world.

Dr. Luisa A. Igloria and Kent Wascom 2023 Festival Co-directors

All events are free and open to the community!

Free parking available in Constant Center/45th Street Garage for events in University Theatre.

For more information, please contact the Old Dominion University English Department at (757) 683-3991 or email [email protected] .

Follow the Literary Festival on Facebook  @ODULitFest  and on Instagram  @olddominionmfa

• Past Seasons
• Gordon the Robot
• Literary Festival Archives
• Barry Art Museum
• Diehn School of Music
• Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries
• Brock Commons
• Chandler Recital Hall
• Goode Theatre
• University Theatre
• ODU Virginia Beach Center

46th Annual ODU Literary Festival Schedule

All events are in University Theatre unless indicated otherwise. Follow the Literary Festival on Facebook:  @ODULitFest . 

Sunday, Oct. 1

Monday, oct. 2, tuesday, oct. 3, wednesday, oct. 4, thursday, oct. 5.

4 p.m., Opening Reception

The Green Onion Restaurant, 1603 Colley Avenue

12:00 p.m. Chauna Craig & Jerri Dickseski Prize Presentation  

Chauna Craig has published her stories and essays in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including Ploughshares , Prairie Schooner , Fourth Genre , Sou’wester and Flash Fiction America (forthcoming 2023). She’s been awarded fellowships and scholarships to Vermont Studio Center, Hedgebrook, and Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. A Montana native, she currently lives in western Pennsylvania. The Widow’s Guide to Edible Mushrooms was her debut story collection, and Wings & Other Things is her second, both with Press 53.

4:00 p.m. Faculty Readings  

Jane Alberdeston’s work has been published in various anthologies and journals, such as Step into a World, Bum Rush the Page, Paterson Literary Review, Sargasso: A Journal of Caribbean Literature, The Acentos Review, Rock and Sling: A Journal of Witness, Manteca! An Anthology of AfroBoricua Poets, and  Caribbean Vistas. She is the co-author of the YA novel Sister Chicas, and the novel Colony 51, coming in December 2023. She is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University. 

Marianne Chan grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, and Lansing, Michigan. After she earned her B.A. in English from Michigan State University, she went on to study poetry at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, where she earned her MFA. 

Marianne is the author of All Heathens, which was the winner of the 2021 GLCA New Writers Award in Poetry, the 2021 Ohioana Book Award in Poetry, and the 2022 Association for Asian American Studies Book Award for Outstanding Achievement. Her poems have appeared in Poetry Magazine, New England Review, Kenyon Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. Between 2017-2019, she served as poetry editor for Split Lip Magazine. She is a Kundiman fellow.

She lives in Norfolk, Virginia . She is married to the fiction writer Clancy McGilligan.  

7:00 p.m. Brian Turner  

Brian Turner is the author of five collections of poetry, most recently: The Wild Delight of Wild Things (2023), The Goodbye World Poem (2023), and The Dead Peasant’s Handbook (2023), all forthcoming with Alice James Books. His other collections include Here, Bullet to Phantom Noise, and the memoir My Life as a Foreign Country. He is the editor of The Kiss and co-editor of The Strangest of Theatres anthologies. A musician, he has also written and recorded several albums with The Interplanetary Acoustic Team, including 11 11 (Me Smiling) and The Retro Legion’s American Undertow. His poems and essays have been published in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, Harper’s, among other fine journals, and he was featured in the documentary film Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, which was nominated for an Academy Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he has received a USA Hillcrest Fellowship in Literature, the Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and a Fellowship from the Lannan Foundation. He lives in Orlando, Florida, with his dog, Dene, the world’s sweetest golden retriever.

12:00 p.m. Virginie Beauregard D., with Peter Schulman

Virginie Beauregard D. is the author of three acclaimed books of poetry: Les heures se trompent de but ( The hours miss their mark ) in 2010; in 2014 she published D’une main sauvage ( From a Savage Hand ) which was a finalist for the Emile Nelligan Prize in 2015 and a winner of the Jean Lafrenière Prize at the International Poetry Festival of Trois-Rivières in 2016. Les derniers coureurs ( The Last Runners ) in 2018 and was a finalist for the prestigious Prix des Libraires in 2019. All three volumes were published by Les Editions de l’Ecrou. In 2019, she published a children’s book, Perruche  (Parakeet) at La Courte Echelle . She is very active in the contemporary Quebecois poetry world and one of her earliest poems, “ Vous êtes tous des petits garçons qui rêvez de lilas en fleurs” (“You are all little boys who dream of flowery lilacs ” ) was performed by the theater company Thêatre de Quatre Sous in Montreal in 2009.

6:00 p.m. Peter Weller

Dr. Peter Weller is a noted actor, director and Italian Renaissance art historian. He is most known as the star of the iconic films Robocop (1987) and Robocop 2 (1990), The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (1984), and Naked Lunch  (1991). His more recent appearances (roles and guest roles) include, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), the TV series Dexter (2010) and  24 (2006). Dr. Weller is also an acclaimed director, having directed numerous episodes of Sons of Anarchy (2011-2014), Longmire (2012-2017), and most recently Hawaii Five-O (2013-2019). In addition to his long and successful career in theatre, film, and television, Dr. Weller is an art historian. He received his PhD in Art History with a specialization in Italian Renaissance Art from UCLA. He is the author of an important peer-reviewed article on the Italian Renaissance sculptor Donatello (“Donatello’s Bronze David in the Twenty-First Century,” 2012), and an essay contribution on the Italian Renaissance painter Antonello da Messina (in Visualizing Sensuous Suffering and Affective Pain in Early Modern Europe and the Spanish Americas , Brill, 2018).

7:30 p.m. From Naro Video at ODU Libraries: THE NEW AGE (1994) with Peter Weller

12:00 p.m. michael patrick pearson.

Michael Patrick Pearson , for many years a professor of creative writing and literature at Old Dominion University, has published essays and reviews in The Boston Globe, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Southern Literary Journal, Shenandoah Review, Chautauqua, The Morning News, Creative Nonfiction, The New York Journal of Books, and others.  He is the author of many books – among them Imagined Places: Journeys into Literary America (1991 –a NYT Notable Book), Dreaming of Columbus: A Boyhood in the Bronx (1999),Innocents Abroad Too (2008 -- a narrative about two journeys around the world by ship), Reading Life -- On Books, Memory, and Travel (2015), and Shohola Falls (2003 -- a coming-of-age novel that imagines the hidden life of Mark Twain and the journal of Thomas Blankenship (the real-life Huck Finn).  His new book, The Road to Dungannon (2023), is a narrative about his maternal grandfather, Irish history and literature, and the writer's travels around the island.  Willie Morris, the former editor of Harper's, said, "Michael Pearson is one of our nation's finest memoirists."  

4:00 p.m. Alumni Readings  

Amanda Galvan Huynh (she/her) is a Xicana writer and educator from Texas. She is the author of a chapbook, Songs of Brujería (Big Lucks September 2019) and Co-Editor of Of Color: Poets’ Ways of Making: An Anthology of Essays on Transformative Poetics (The Operating System 2019). Her debut poetry collection, Where My Umbilical is Buried, is forthcoming in March 2023 with Sundress Publications. Amanda has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets, and Sundress Publications’ Best of the Net. She was a 2016 AWP Intro Journal Project Award Winner, 2018 Best of the Net Winner, a finalist for the 2015 Gloria Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and a finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship. Her poetry can be read in print and online journals such as Hayden’s Ferry Review , Puerto del Sol , The Southampton Review , and others. 

Amanda earned her MFA in Poetry at Old Dominion University, BA in English at the University of Texas at Arlington, and BA in Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas. Currently, she is a doctoral student in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

Richard Leise writes and teaches outside Ithaca, NY.  A Perry Morgan Fellow from Old Dominion University’s MFA program, his fiction and poetry is featured in numerous publications.  His debut novel, Being Dead , will be available from Brigids Gate Press fall, 2023.  

Bob Kunzinger is a non-fiction writer whose work has appeared in the Southern Humanities Review, WW2 History, The Chronicle of Higher Education, St Anthony Messenger, Ilanot Review, Kestrel, the Washington Post and many others. He has authored ten books of essays including Penance, still very popular in Prague, and Borderline Crazy , a collection of essays which includes several noted by Best American Essays. His next book is the narrative memoir, The Iron Scar: A Father and Son in Siberia , from Madville Publishing, who did his previous collection of essays, A Third Place: Notes in Nature.

Tracy Rice Weber   is a longtime educator who currently teaches as an adjunct at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA and at The Muse Writing Center in Norfolk. A graduate of the ODU MFA Program, her work can be found in River River, The Bangalore Review, on Poets.org as a recipient of the Academy of American Poets College Poetry Prize, and forthcoming in the 2024 winter/spring issue of CALYX. In 2021, her chapbook, All That Keeps Me was published by Finishing Line Press. Tools & Ornaments, her first full-length collection of poems, will be released by St. Julian Press in fall 2023. She lives with her husband and two of her three sons in Hampton, VA.

Van Vaneendenburg served as an analyst during her 30-plus-year naval career, retiring as a captain, and holds a master’s from the University of Southern California. She is the inaugural S.C.R.Y. Fellow in Literature (Scry Creative Residencies; scrymagazine.com ) and a National Endowment for the Arts Military Veteran Fellow at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.  A graduate of the ODU MFA program, Van’s work has appeared  in Navy Blues, a collection of personal essays pushing against individual and bureaucratic identities of the post-Vietnam Navy, and Sisters in Arms: Lessons We’ve Learned (2023).   

7:00 p.m. S.A. Cosby  

S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award-winning writer from Southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers All the Sinners Bleed , Razorblade Tears, and Blacktop Wasteland , which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others. When not writing, he is an avid hiker and chess player.

7:00 p.m. Andrew Joseph White  

Andrew Joseph White is a queer, trans, New York Times bestselling author from Virginia, where he grew up falling in love with monsters and wishing he could be one too. He received his MFA in creative writing from George Mason University in 2022. Find him at AndrewJosephWhite.com or on Twitter @AJWhiteAuthor.

Free parking available in Constant Center/45th Street Garage for events in University Theatre and in the 43rd Street Garage for the Barry Art Museum.

Special Thanks

• President Brian Hemphill, Ph.D. and the Office of the President
• Cullen Strawn, Ph.D, Sarah Glaser, and Arts@ODU
• Michael Khandelwal and The Muse Writers Center
• Edith White and the Forrest P. White Endowment
• Kris King and the Naro Expanded Video Collection
• Sarah Pishko and Prince Books
• Dean Dr. Laura Delbrugge and the Office of the Dean, College of Arts and Letters
• SuperCompStudios, logo design
• Erin Dougherty and Eleanor's Norfolk
• Jerri Dickseski
• Kenneth FitzGerald, Graphic Design
• Dr. Anne H. Muraoka and the Institute for the Humanities

Where great writers of the future connect with the great writers of our time

The Old Dominion University Annual Literary Festival is the premier event of our MFA Program in Creative Writing and one of the many reasons to study the writer's craft with us at ODU.

Visit the University Libraries' Annual Literary Festival Digital Archives to view materials from past festivals.

Enhance your college career by gaining relevant experience with the skills and knowledge needed for your future career. Discover our experiential learning opportunities.

Picture yourself in the classroom, speak with professors in your major, and meet current students.

From sports games to concerts and lectures, join the ODU community at a variety of campus events. 

final press release

The most important literary festivals in Romania,

alongside the International Literature Festival Odesa

Last night, February 25, the 9th edition of the  International Literature Festival Odesa ended, a traditional event, which became itinerant due to the war and was hosted this year in Bucharest. There were four full days, in which the Bucharest public was able to attend a program of events with an extremely diverse format: from public readings to debates around the most important topics of the moment in terms of world politics, such as the future of Europe or the fight against barbarism.

E.S. also spoke about the architecture of the program of the 9th edition of the  International Literature Festival Odesa and the relevance of the themes. Mr. Igor Prokopchuk, Ambassador of Ukraine to Romania, in his speech on the evening of February 22. His Excellency wanted to express his joy regarding the fact that the festival is hosted in Bucharest, in Romania, one of the leading countries in supporting the Ukrainian population after the outbreak of the war. Also, the Ambassador of Ukraine in Romania urged the public to hold a moment of silence in memory of the victims of the war in Ukraine, which he called “the biggest humanitarian crisis in Europe after the Second World War”.

At the end of the four days that totaled over 20 events, the organizers of the most important literature festivals in Romania sent a few thoughts to the organizers of the International Literature Festival Odesa.

“To be effective against a tyranny or against violence, literature must assert itself and be. That’s it. History has shown us, so many times, that a dictator is more afraid of words than anything. Literature is a universal weapon, because the border of language is illusory: therefore, the imperative to which it submits is an affirmative one, of literary action.

I’m glad that literature won once again, and the  Literature Festival Odesa could continue in Bucharest”, said Ioan Cristescu, president of the Bucharest International Poetry Festival (FIPB) and director of the National Museum of Romanian Literature.

About the power of literature to find ways to reach the public, beyond the power of weapons, the writer Lucian Dan Teodorovici, president of the Iasi International Literature and Translation Festival – FILIT, also spoke: “A festival like this, which moved for a few days Odesa in Bucharest is more than a literary manifestation, it is above all a declaration of freedom. However, as much joy as the festival of literature lovers in Romania could produce, I wish that in the coming years (many and good) I will know that it takes place at home, where it belongs. In complete safety and in complete freedom”.

“I am still shaken by the documentary I watched last night, 20 days in Mariupol, a film which, thanks to the courage and vocation of some journalists, shows how a city turns into an inferno due to the Russian invasion. Odesa is standing, not like Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities that have become ruins, but its life is, well, elsewhere. In order to continue living, the Odesa literature festival had to find a refuge in Bucharest. Solidarity worked again this time, and writers were able to make their voices heard. The world of literature has, in fact, no borders, and the different languages in which it is written are not barriers, but meeting colors. These days, the roads of literature led to Odesa, via Bucharest. I hope that next year the festival will take place where it belongs, at his home, in peace”, testified Robert Șerban, president of the Timișoara International Literature Festival (FILTM).

On behalf of the International Festival of Poetry and Music “Poetry is in Bistrita”, the writers Marin Mălaicu-Hondrari and Dan Coman also expressed their confidence in the power of literature to conquer people more powerfully than bands manage to conquer territories: “Literature sees his way. Even when it seems irrelevant, it demonstrates its strength, as it happened now, from Odesa to Bucharest. Its strength lies not in conquering territories, but in uniting people. The Odesa festival continues, that matters and gives us courage”.

The writer Radu Vancu, who gave the opening speech of this year’s edition of the Odesa International Literature Festival, gave us another thought, this time from the perspective of the cultural manager – as the president of the “Poets in Transylvania” International Festival ” which takes place in Sibiu: “The Odesa Literature Festival took place in Bucharest on the two-year anniversary of the barbaric war started by Russia in Ukraine. Two years of heroism – in which Ukraine was not only not conquered & annihilated, but became a candidate state for admission to the European Union. And fight on for all of us. For the world that believes in freedom & democracy – which will remain so (ie free & democratic) only if Russia is definitively defeated. And it will be. So being with Ukraine today means believing that the human species has a future. Not just as a species – but as a truly human one.”

Founded in 2015, the International Literature Festival Odesa aimed to emphasize the cultural effervescence and international character of the city and contribute to strengthening its ties with other cultural metropolises in Europe and on other continents. The program of each separate edition expresses this desire, both through the selection of invited writers and through the dialogue themes. A particular importance in the architecture of the festival program is occupied by the panorama of the cultural space in the area of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region. To date, almost 300 writers have taken part in the events of the  International Literature Festival Odesa. Hans Ruprecht and Ulrich Schreiber have been running the festival since its inception.

Cele mai importante festivaluri de literatură din România,

alături de Festivalul Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa

Aseară, 25 februarie, s-a încheiat cea de- a IX-a ediție a Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa , un eveniment de tradiție, devenit itinerant din cauza războiului și găzduit anul acesta la București. Au fost patru zile pline, în care publicul bucureștean a putut să asiste la un program de evenimente cu un format extrem de divers: de la lecturi publice până la dezbateri în jurul celor mai importante teme ale momentului în planul politicii mondiale, precum viitorul Europei sau lupta împotriva barbariei.

Despre arhitectura programului celei de-a IX-a ediții a Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa și relevanța temelor a vorbit și E.S. Domnul Igor Prokopchuk, Ambasadorul Ucrainei în România , în discursul său din seara zilei de 22 februarie. Excelența Sa a ținut să își exprime bucuria cu privire la faptul că festivalul este găzduit la București, în România, una dintre țările-lider în susținerea populației ucrainene după izbucnirea războiului. De asemenea, Ambasadorul Ucrainei în România a îndemnat publicul să țină un moment de reculegere în memoria victimelor războiului din Ucraina pe care l-a numit „cea mai mare criză umanitară din Europa de după Cel de-Al Doilea Război Mondial”.

La finalul celor patru zile care au însumat peste 20 de evenimente, organizatorii celor mai importante festivaluri de literatură din România le-au transmis organizatorilor Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa câteva gânduri.

„Pentru a fi eficientă împotriva unei tiranii sau împotriva violenței, literatura trebuie să se afirme și să fie. Atât. Istoria ne-a tot arătat, de atâtea ori, că unui dictator îi e mai frică de cuvinte decât de orice. Literatura este o armă universală, căci granița limbii este iluzorie: de aceea, imperativul căruia i se supune este unul afirmativ, al acțiunii literare. 

Mă bucur că literatura a invins încă o dată, iar Festivalul de literatură de la Odesa a putut continua la București”, a declarat Ioan Cristescu , președintele Festivalului Internațional de Poezie de la București (FIPB) și directorul Muzeului Național al Literaturii Române.

Despre puterea literaturii de a-și găsi căi pentru a ajunge la public, dincolo de puterea armelor a vorbit și scritorul Lucian Dan Teodorovici , președintele Festivalul Internațional de Literatură și Traducere Iași – FILIT: „Un festival precum acesta, care a mutat pentru câteva zile Odesa în București, este mai mult decât o manifestare literară, este înainte de toate o declarație de libertate. Însă, oricâtă bucurie a putut produce festivalul iubitorilor de literatură din România, îmi doresc ca în anii viitori (mulți și buni) să știu că se desfășoară acasă, acolo unde îi e locul. În deplină siguranță și în deplină libertate” .

„Sunt cutremurat, încă, de documentarul pe care l-am privit azi noapte, 20 de zile în Mariupol , film care, datorită curajului și vocației unor jurnaliști, arată cum un oraș se transformă, din cauza invaziei ruse, într-un infern. Odesa e în picioare, nu ca Mariupol și ale orașe ucrainiene ce au devenit ruine, dar viața ei este, iată, și în altă parte. Ca să poată trăi în continuare, festivalul de literatură din Odesa a trebuit să-și găsească un refugiu, la București. Solidaritatea a funcționat și de data asta, iar scriitorii și-au putut face auzite vocile. Lumea literaturii nu are, în fond, granițe, iar limbile diferite în care se scrie nu sunt bariere, ci culoare de întâlnire. În aceste zile, drumurile literaturii au dus către Odesa, via București. Am speranța că anul viitor festivalul se va desfășura acolo unde îi este locul, la el acasă, în pace” , a mărturisit Robert Șerban , președintele Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Timișoara (FILTM) .

Din partea Festivalul Internațional de Poezie și Muzică „Poezia e la Bistrița” , scriitorii Marin Mălaicu-Hondrari și Dan Coman și-au exprimat, de asemenea, încrederea în puterea literaturii de a cuceri oamenii mai puternic decât reușesc trupele să cucerească teritorii: „Literatura își vede de drum. Chiar și atunci când pare irelevantă, își demonstrează forța, cum s-a întâmplat și acum, de la Odesa la București. Forța ei nu stă în a cuceri teritorii, ci în a uni oameni. Festivalul de la Odesa continuă, asta contează și ne dă curaj” .

Scriitorul Radu Vancu , cel care a ținut discursul de deschidere al ediției din acest an a Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa, ne-a transmis încă un gând, de data aceasta din perspectiva managerului cultural – ca președintre al Festivalului Internațional „Poets in Transylvania” care are loc la Sibiu: „Festivalul de literatură de la Odesa a avut loc la București în zilele în care se împlineau doi ani de la războiul barbar declanșat de Rusia în Ucraina. Doi ani de eroism – în care Ucraina nu numai că n-a fost cucerită & aneantizată, ci a devenit stat candidat pentru admiterea în Uniunea Europeană. Și luptă mai departe pentru noi toți. Pentru lumea care crede în libertate & democrație – care va fi rămâne astfel (adică liberă & democratică) numai dacă Rusia e învinsă definitiv. Și va fi. Așa că a fi azi alături de Ucraina înseamnă a crede că specia umană are un viitor. Nu doar ca specie – ci ca una cu adevărat umană” .

Fondat în anul 2015, Festivalul internațional de literatură de la Odesa și-a propus să sublinieze efervescența culturală și caracterul internațional al orașului și să contribuie la consolidarea legăturilor sale cu alte metropole culturale din Europa și de pe alte continente. Programul fiecărei ediții în parte exprimă acest deziderat, atât prin selecția scriitorilor invitați, cât și prin temele de dialog. O importanță deosebită în arhitectura programului festivalului o ocupă panoramarea spațiului cultural din zona Europei de Est și a regiunii Mării Negre. Până în prezent, aproape 300 de scriitori au luat parte la evenimentele din cadrul Festivalului internațional de literatură de la Odesa. Hans Ruprecht și Ulrich Schreiber conduc festivalul de la înființarea sa.

“Literature gives the dead a voice and makes them sing”

Ariane von Graffenried, guest of the 2024 Odessa International Literature Festival

Tomorrow, the 22 nd of February , the 9 th edition of the Odessa International Festival of Literature opens at the Goethe-Institut in Bucharest (Calea Dorobanți 32). A beloved and popular project for literature lovers, the festival enjoys consistent support from today’s most important European writers and leading civic voices. For this reason, new names have joined the festival’s public readings, such as Ukrainian writers Andrei Kurkov and Yury Andrukovych , and many others. The current programme of the festival can be found on the official website: http://litfestodessa.com/program-en

Another novelty is that, at the opening event, planned for February the 22 nd , at 17:00, His Excellency Mr. Ihor Prokopchuk , Ambassador of Ukraine will attend the festival.

In anticipation of their arrival in Bucharest, some of the writers invited to this year’s edition of the festival have sent their thoughts to Romanian literature lovers.

“ I think every gathering of international writers is a good opportunity to exchange ideas about literature and politics. I hope we can actively listen to each other. If we believe that literature is a universal tool for understanding, we can use it for discussion, not for fighting,” says Ukrainian writer Vasil Makhno —a multi-award-winning poet, essayist and translator who explores the concepts of motherland and memory in his books, reflecting the polyphonic past of his native land.

“ I believe that if war should come upon them in their homeland, writers must become its defenders when their country is brutally attacked. This is why many Ukrainian writers write literature and essays about war and participate in international festivals. Many of them serve in the army and fight on the front lines. In this moment, literature becomes a voice of these times, because it has to be heard ,” he added.

“ Literature in times of war is both a getaway from the terrible reality and a weapon because it is impossible to not write about war “, said writer Yury Vinnychuk before coming to Bucharest; he is a living legend of Ukrainian literature, tireless critic of the political system, considered the most versatile of contemporary Ukrainian writers.

The Swiss writer Ariane von Graffenried , spoken word author, member of the duo “Fitzgerald & Rimini” and curator of the Basel International Poetry Festival, also talks about the power of writing to give a voice to literature in her advance message to Romanian readers: “ Metaphors don’t work against people with guns. And beautiful verses cannot heal wounds. Literature can create a community here and now, it can offer comfort, it can express anger, and it can witness both what is beautiful and what is hideous. Literature can give the dead a voice and make them sing .”

For Italian writer Ilaria Gaspari , known for her passion for podcasts dedicated to the works of famous writers, this year’s Odessa International Festival is an opportunity to remember the horrors of the two world wars: “ I am coming to Bucharest thinking of two great European authors who lived in different historical moments, but were both touched by the consequences of one of the two world wars. I am thinking of Marcel Proust, who witnessed the collapse of his childhood, whose inexorable decline he had already observed and recorded, with the outbreak of the First World War. Then, my thoughts turn to Ingeborg Bachmann, who in her Austrian childhood experienced the trauma of the Nazi devastation and who would search throughout her life for a way to live in a historical moment in which the self is no longer submerged in history, but history is in the self .”

Is literature an escape? A voice? Or a weapon?

“ It is not a weapon, because literature does not destroy; and it is indeed unequipped and vulnerable in the face of war, but it has the collective force of a voice that transmits words and thoughts. It is not a form of escape, but an open refuge, that is, open as a protection against horror ,” added the beloved Italian writer.

Festival activities will be held in English , Ukrainian , German and Romanian , with translation. Public access to the event is free of charge.

Founded in 2015, the Odessa International Literature Festival aims to highlight the cultural effervescence and international character of the city and to contribute to strengthening its ties with other cultural metropolises in Europe and on other continents. The programme of each edition expresses this aim, both through the selection of guest writers and the dialogues. Of particular importance in the architecture of the festival’s programme is the overview of the cultural space of Eastern Europe and the Black Sea region. So far, almost 300 writers have taken part in the events of the Odessa International Literature Festival. Hans Ruprecht and Ulrich Schreiber have been running the festival since its creation.

„Literatura le dă morților o voce și îi face să cânte”

Mâine, 22 februarie, debutează cea de-a IX-a ediție a Festivalului Internațional de Literatură de la Odesa, găzduită la București, la sediul Goethe-Institut (Calea Dorobanți 32). Proiect îndrăgit și urmărit de iubitorii de literatură, Festivalul se bucură de o susținere consistentă din partea celor mai importanți scriitori europeni de astăzi, voci civice marcante. Acesta este motivul pentru care noi și noi nume s-au alăturat lecturilor publice din cadrul Festivalului, precum cele ale scriitorilor ucraineni Andrei Kurkov sau Iuri Andruhovîci și mulți alții. Programul la zi al Festivalului poate fi consultat pe site-ul official: http://litfestodessa.com/ program-en O altă noutate o constituie faptul că, la evenimentul de deschidere, plănuit pentru data de 22 februarie, ora 17.00, E.S. Domnul Igor Prokopchuk, Ambasadorul Ucrainei la București, s-a alăturat organizatorilor, acceptând să țină o alocuțiune în debutul festivalului. În așteptarea venirii la București, o parte dintre scriitori invitați la ediția din acest an a festivalului le-au transmis gândurile lor iubitorilor de literatură din România. „Cred că fiecare întâlnire internațională a scriitorilor este o bună ocazie de a face schimb de idei despre literatură și politică. Sper că ne putem asculta activ unii pe alții. Dacă credem că literatura este un instrument universal de înțelegere, putem să o folosim pentru discuții, nu pentru luptă”, consideră scriitorul ucrainean Vasîl Mahno – poet, eseist și traducător multipremiat, care investighează în cărțile sale conceptele de patrie și memorie, reflectând trecutul polifonic al locului său de origine. „Consider că, dacă vine războiul peste ei în țara lor natală, scriitorii trebuie să se transforme în apărătorii ei, atunci când țara le este atacată cu brutalitate. Acesta este motivul pentru care mulți scriitori ucraineni scriu literatură și eseuri despre război și participă la festivaluri internaționale. Mulți dintre ei servesc în armată și luptă pe fronturi. În această perioadă, literatura devine o portavoce a acestor timpuri, pentru că trebuie să se facă auzită”, a completat acesta. „Literatura în vremuri de război este atât o evadare din realitatea îngrozitoare, cât și o armă, pentru că este imposibil să nu scrii despre război”, a transmis înaintea venitii la București scriitorul Yuri Vînnîciuk, o legendă vie a literaturii ucrainene, critic neobosit al sistemului politic, considerat cel mai versatil dintre scriitorii ucraineni contemporani. Despre puterea literaturii de a de a da voce literaturii vorbește și scriitoarea elvețiană Ariane von Graffenried, autoare de spoken word, membră a duo-ului „Fitzgerald & Rimini” și curatoare a Festivalului Internațional de Poezie de la Basel, în mesajul său transmis în avans cititorilor români: „Metaforele nu ajută împotriva oamenilor cu arme. Iar versurile frumoase nu pot vindeca rănile. Literatura poate crea o comunitate aici și acum, poate oferi mângâiere, poate exprima furia și poate fi martoră, deopotrivă, la frumos și la odios. Literatura le dă morților o voce și îi poate face să cânte”. Pentru scriitoarea italiană Ilaria Gaspari, cunoscută pentru pasiunea sa pentru podcasturi dedicate operelor unor scriitori cunoscuți, ediția itinerantă din acest a Festivalului Internațional de la Odesa este un prilej de a rememora ororile celor două conflagrații mondiale: „Vin spre București cu gândul la doi mari autori europeni care au trăit în momente istorice diferite, dar au fost amândoi atinși de urmările și consecințele câte unuia dintre cele două războaie mondiale. Mă gândesc la Marcel Proust, care a văzut odată cu Primul Război Mondial scufundându-se și sfârșindu-se pentru totdeauna lumea copilăriei sale, al cărei declin inexorabil îl observase și îl consemnase deja. Apoi, gândurile merg către Ingeborg Bachmann, cea care în copilăria sa austriacă a cunoscut trauma devastărilor naziste și care va căuta de-a lungul vieții o cale a trăi într-un moment istoric în care eul să nu mai fie scufundat în istorie, ci istoria să fie în eul său”. Este literatura o evadare? O portavoce? Sau o armă? „Nu este o armă, pentru că literatura nu distruge; și este, într-adevăr, neînarmată și vulnerabilă la război, dar cu forța colectivă a unei portavoci care răspândește cuvinte și gânduri. Nu este o formă de evadare, ci un refugiu deschis, adică deschis pentru a proteja împotriva ororii”, a adăugat îndrăgita scriitoare italiană. Evenimentele din cadrul festivalului vor avea loc în limbile engleză, ucraineană, germană și română, cu traducere. Accesul publicului la eveniment este gratuit. Fondat în anul 2015, Festivalul internațional de literatură de la Odesa și-a propus să sublinieze efervescența culturală și caracterul internațional al orașului și să contribuie la consolidarea legăturilor sale cu alte metropole culturale din Europa și de pe alte continente. Programul fiecărei ediții în parte exprimă acest deziderat, atât prin selecția scriitorilor invitați, cât și prin temele de dialog. O importanță deosebită în arhitectura programului festivalului o ocupă panoramarea spațiului cultural din zona Europei de Est și a regiunii Mării Negre. Până în prezent, aproape 300 de scriitori au luat parte la evenimentele din cadrul Festivalului internațional de literatură de la Odesa. Hans Ruprecht și Ulrich Schreiber conduc festivalul de la înființarea sa.

WORLDWIDE READING OF UKRAINIAN LITERATURE

The worldwide readings continue! In Copenhagen, Erevan, Calcutta, Milan, Zaporizhia , Berlin and other cities, texts by Ukrainian authors will be read in Bucharest, including those by the poets Volodimir Vakulenko, Victoria Amelina and Maksym Kryvtzov, who were killed in the war. In a film produced especially for the worldwide reading, Yurij Andruchovitch, Svitlana Bondar, Andrei Kurkov, Iya Kiva, Dmytro Lazutkin, Halyna Kruk, Vasyl Makhno from Ukraine, Dan Sociu and Varujan Vosganian from Romania as well as Nora Bossong, Daniel Kehlmann and Jan Koneffke from Germany, among others, will read Ukrainian texts. We would like to thank the Goethe Institutes for their cooperation.

This event can be watched online, also after the festival

YouTube:  https://www.youtube. com/@ internationalliteraturefes7445

Facebook:   https://www. facebook.com/ InternationalesLiteraturfestiv alOdesa

participants:

Time: 16:00 -19.00. (Copenhagen time) Organizers: Ukraine House in Denmark Venue: Strandgade 27B, 1401 Copenhagen Participants: Kateryna Kalytko, Iya Kiva , Halyna Kruk , Oleksandr Mykhed , Iryna Shuvalova Iryna Tsilyk Event language: Danish, Ukrainian Website: https://www.ukrainehouse.dk

Time: 18.30 p.m. (Calcutta time) Organizers: Goethe-Institut Kolkata mit der Unterstützung von Deutschen Generalkonsulat in Kolkata Venue: Goethe-Institut Calcutta Event language: English Website:  https://www.goethe.de/ins/in/en/ver.cfm

16.00 – 17.30 p.m. (CET) Organizers: Association Ucraina Più Milano in cooperation with Goethe-Institut Milano Venue: Goethe-Institut Mailand, Via San Paolo 10, Milano Website: https://www.goethe.de/ins/it/de/sta/mai/ver.cfm?event_id=25420063

13.00 – 14.00 (Kyiv time) Organizer: Zaporizzhia public library

Venue: Zaporizhia public library

Participant: Yaroslava Degtiarenko Event language: Ukrainian Website: https://www.facebook.com/bibliozp

14:00 – 15:00 ( Kyiv time)

Organizers: Suspilne Odesa and Odesa Ukrainian Academic Theatre named after V. Vasylko

The event is devoted to the authors killed in the war.

Venue: Radio Studio of Suspilne Odesa

Event language: Ukrainian

Moderator: Svitlana Bondar

This event can be watched online 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@internationalliteraturefes7445

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InternationalesLiteraturfestivalOdesa

Some of our events can be followed online

• Legal Notice

30 January - 3 February 2025 | Hotel Clarks Amer, Jaipur

• Book your Festival Hotel
• View Programme

Book Your Package Now

Buy Tickets Now

Register Now

The 2025 edition of the literary extravaganza will be back at Jaipur’s Hotel Clarks Amer and will be held between 30th January - 3rd February with its characteristic flavour, substance, and scale, bringing together writers, readers, connoisseurs, influencers, and thinkers.

Discover The Festival

Speakers 2024

Jaipur Music Stage

Festival Buzzaar

Friends of the Festival

Sponsers & Partners

The Friend of the Festival Experience

From January 30 to February 3, 2025, treat yourself to the best of Jaipur hospitality and festival offerings that will make you feel special at every point.

Programme Highlights 2024

Baal-O-Par: The Beating Heart of Poetry

Gulzar, Rakhshanda Jalil and Pavan K. Varma in conversation

Prophet Song

Paul Lynch in conversation with Nandini Nair

Breaking the Mould: Reimagining the Economic Future

Raghuram Rajan and Rohit Lamba in conversation with Naushad Forbes

Common Yet Uncommon

Sudha Murthy in conversation with Meru Gokhale

How Prime Ministers Decide

Neerja Chowdhury in conversation with Mandira Nayar

Shahjahanabad: On Delhi's Broken History

Swapna Liddle and Rana Safvi in conversation with William Dalrymple

Oppenheimer: The American Prometheus

Kai Bird in conversation with Jonathan Freedland

The Promise

Damon Galgut in conversation with Anish Gawande

SPONSORS & PARTNERS

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS Over 250 million Festival Digital Reach Over 25 million Festival Digital Views 5000 Media Coverage What Our Attendees Say!

Seeing school students, in uniform, on a Saturday, peppering esteemed journalists and politicians with erudite and wide-ranging questions was brilliant.

The most fabulous literary love-fest on the planet.

The greatest literary show on Earth.

The Jaipur Literary Festival is part-circus, part-postgraduate seminar and part-revolutionary assembly.

Writing Competition: Dis/solution

Write your story about the climate crisis in a poem or a personal essay

• The competition is open for entries from all countries.
• Participants must be 18–25 years (born between 01.01.1999-31.12.2005)
• Entries must be in English. Original language may be attached.
• Entries cannot be published anywhere prior to the competition.
• Essay: Maximum 1700 words in English.
• Poem: Maximum 700 words in English.
• Participants may only enter the contest once in each category.
• One poetry winner and one essay winner will each receive euro 2000.
• All entries must be submitted no later than 15 October 2023.

The competition is a collaboration between the Bergen International Literary Festival (LitFestBergen), the research project «Climate Narratives» at University of Bergen / Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research and the Rafto Foundation for Human Rights.

• The poetry and the essay winner will be announced during LitFestBergen, 7-11 February 2024.
• Sessions at the festival will include participants and jury members.
• A selection of the best entries will be published on the homepages of Climate Narratives and LitFestBergen, and in a printed publication. 
• Selected participants will be invited to a workshop prior to the festival.
• All writers selected for publication will receive a payment.
• The entries will be used in research in the Climate Narratives project (option-out possible).
• Write to [email protected] for inquiries.
• Address: Bergen International Literary Festival, Litteraturhuset i Bergen, Østre Skostredet 5-7, 5017 Bergen, Norway
• By submitting your essay and/or your poem, you give permission to the organizer to publish it in any form related to the contest. Ownership of the work remains with you.
• Nnimmo Bassey, Nigeria: Environmentalist, Rafto prize laureate, architect, and poet
• Tishani Doshi, India: Poet, dancer, and author 
• Teresa Grøtan, Norway: Director of Bergen International Literary Festival and author
• Daniel Medin, France/USA: Professor of Comparative Literature, The American University of Paris, editor, and writer
• Kerim Nisancioglu, Norway: Head of the project «Climate Narratives» and Professor of climate Dynamics, Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen
• Pivinnguaq  Mørch, Greenland: Poet and author
• Larry Thomas, Fiji: Director of Oceania Centre at the University of the South Pacific, playwright, filmmaker, and writer

Share Content

Sign up for our newsletter.

Presentations made painless

• Get Premium

103 Festival Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Festivals are a time for celebration, reflection, and coming together as a community. Whether it's a cultural, music, food, or art festival, there are endless topics to explore and write about. If you're looking for inspiration for your next festival essay, look no further than this list of 103 festival essay topic ideas and examples.

• The Impact of Music Festivals on Youth Culture
• Exploring the History of Mardi Gras
• The Evolution of Coachella: From Music Festival to Cultural Phenomenon
• The Significance of Diwali in Indian Culture
• A Guide to Celebrating Oktoberfest in Germany
• The Role of Food Festivals in Promoting Local Cuisine
• The Cultural Significance of the Chinese New Year Festival
• The Rise of Literary Festivals in the Digital Age
• The Impact of Festivals on Local Economies
• The Intersection of Art and Technology at Burning Man
• The History and Traditions of the Day of the Dead Festival
• The Environmental Impact of Music Festivals
• The Connection Between Festivals and Tourism
• The Role of Festivals in Preserving and Promoting Traditional Crafts
• The Influence of Festivals on Fashion Trends
• The Role of Festivals in Building Community
• The History and Evolution of Pride Parades
• The Cultural Significance of the Holi Festival in India
• The Rise of Virtual Festivals in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic
• The Impact of Festivals on Mental Health and Wellbeing
• The Role of Festivals in Celebrating Diversity and Inclusion
• The Significance of Harvest Festivals in Different Cultures
• The History and Traditions of the Carnival of Venice
• The Influence of Festivals on Popular Culture
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Social Change
• The Connection Between Festivals and Religion
• The Impact of Festivals on Local Communities
• The Rise of Food Truck Festivals in Urban Areas
• The Cultural Significance of the Rio de Janeiro Carnival
• The Evolution of Film Festivals in the Digital Age
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Sustainability and Environmental Awareness
• The Influence of Festivals on Music Trends
• The History and Traditions of the Mid-Autumn Festival in China
• The Connection Between Festivals and Identity
• The Role of Festivals in Preserving and Promoting Indigenous Cultures
• The Significance of the Day of the Dead Festival in Mexico
• The Rise of Wellness Festivals in the Wellness Travel Industry
• The Cultural Significance of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
• The Evolution of Beer Festivals in the Craft Beer Movement
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Social Justice and Equality
• The Influence of Festivals on Dance Styles
• The History and Traditions of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan
• The Connection Between Festivals and Politics
• The Significance of the Fasching Festival in Germany
• The Rise of Music Festivals in Emerging Markets
• The Cultural Significance of the Inti Raymi Festival in Peru
• The Evolution of Literary Festivals in the Digital Age
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Community Engagement and Participation
• The Influence of Festivals on Art Trends
• The History and Traditions of the Fiesta de San Fermin in Spain
• The Connection Between Festivals and Gender
• The Significance of the Lantern Festival in Taiwan
• The Rise of Virtual Reality Festivals in the Entertainment Industry
• The Cultural Significance of the Notting Hill Carnival in London
• The Evolution of Food Festivals in the Farm-to-Table Movement
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Cross-Cultural Exchange
• The Influence of Festivals on Literature Trends
• The History and Traditions of the Midsummer Festival in Sweden
• The Connection Between Festivals and Technology
• The Significance of the Gion Matsuri Festival in Japan
• The Rise of Fashion Festivals in the Fashion Industry
• The Cultural Significance of the Kumbh Mela Festival in India
• The Evolution of Film Festivals in the Streaming Era
• The Role of Festivals in Promoting Environmental Conservation
• The Influence of Festivals on Photography Trends
• The History and Traditions of the Semana Santa

Want to create a presentation now?

Instantly Create A Deck

Let PitchGrade do this for me

Hassle Free

We will create your text and designs for you. Sit back and relax while we do the work.

Explore More Content

• Privacy Policy
• Terms of Service

© 2023 Pitchgrade

We use cookies to enhance our website for you. Proceed if you agree to this policy or learn more about it.

• Essay Database >
• Essays Samples >
• Essay Types >
• Literature Review Example

Festival Literature Reviews Samples For Students

2 samples of this type

Do you feel the need to examine some previously written Literature Reviews on Festival before you get down to writing an own piece? In this open-access directory of Festival Literature Review examples, you are provided with an exciting opportunity to discover meaningful topics, content structuring techniques, text flow, formatting styles, and other academically acclaimed writing practices. Implementing them while composing your own Festival Literature Review will definitely allow you to complete the piece faster.

Presenting superb samples isn't the only way our free essays service can help students in their writing ventures – our experts can also create from point zero a fully customized Literature Review on Festival that would make a solid basis for your own academic work.

Literature Review On Consider The Lobster

Corporate philanthropy in the singaporean workforce literature review example, introduction.

Don't waste your time searching for a sample.

Get your literature review done by professional writers!

Just from $10/page

Password recovery email has been sent to [email protected]

Use your new password to log in

You are not register!

By clicking Register, you agree to our Terms of Service and that you have read our Privacy Policy .

Now you can download documents directly to your device!

Check your email! An email with your password has already been sent to you! Now you can download documents directly to your device.

or Use the QR code to Save this Paper to Your Phone

The sample is NOT original!

Short on a deadline?

Don't waste time. Get help with 11% off using code - GETWOWED

No, thanks! I'm fine with missing my deadline

Philippine Book Festival 2024: Discovering literary gems

Get ready as the National Book Development Board (NBDB) hosts one of the country’s largest, most anticipated book fairs this year: the Philippine Book Festival (PBF), highlighting Filipino literature and culture.

April is a month of celebration and inspiration to honor National Literature Month in the Philippines. This year’s PBF celebrates creativity, knowledge, and solidarity by exploring the pages of Philippine literature.

This four-day festival, which will be held at the World Trade Center in Pasay City from April 25 to 28, promises to be one-of-a-kind, with a selection of published works and titles created by Filipino writers. The fair is open to the public from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Entrance is free. 

“This year, we have more authors and we bring together the best of Philippine content for the entire family. The country needs more reading spaces that encourage conversation, creation, and collaboration,”  said NBDB Executive Director Charisse Aquino-Tugade.

“Ang Philippine Book Festival ang nagsisilbing panghikayat ng NBDB sa iba pang mga organisasyon na lumahok at makiisa sa mga programang nagtutulak sa mga Filipino na magbasa dahil ang aklat ay para sa lahat,”  she added. 

(The Philippine Book Festival serves as NBDB’s way to encourage more organizations to join in the programs that encourage Filipinos to read because books are for everyone.)

Here’s what you can expect from the PBF 2024:

1. Ask Ambeth

Ambeth Ocampo, a well-known Rizal scholar and historian, has charmed Philippine readers for decades with his distinct perspective on the national hero. 

Ocampo’s important essay, “Rizal Without the Overcoat,” released in 1990, sought to debunk myths about Rizal’s life and legacy for future generations. 

His writing, which won the National Book Award for Best Book of Essays in 1990, is still important to readers today. 

Don’t miss your chance to meet Ambeth Ocampo, without the overcoat, and get your books autographed on April 27 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. at the Philippine Book Festival’s main stage.

2. ‘Trip to Quiapo’ with Ricky Lee

Have the chance to meet Ricky Lee, an acclaimed master storyteller and National Artist for Film and Broadcast Arts. 

He’ll be presenting concepts from his popular scriptwriting textbook, “Trip to Quiapo.” 

Don’t miss this opportunity to join in on fun discussions about storytelling and gain meaningful insights about life itself. 

You can bring your copy of Ricky Lee’s book to have it signed by him, or you can purchase one from the Philippine Book Festival. 

Catch Ricky Lee on April 26, 2024, 3:30 – 5:00 p.m. at the Philippine Book Festival.

Prepare for a thrilling trip into the world of comics! 

KOMIKET, a non-profit group committed to supporting Filipino komiks culture, is bringing its love for comics to the Philippine Book Festival. 

Komikon will include a broad range of comics, ranging from exciting journeys to touching stories, to cater to all comic book fans. Don’t miss the opportunity to lose yourself in the colorful pages of Filipino komiks during the festival!

4. Enggoy, the puppet

Meet Enggoy, a development communication and education puppet from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) Puppet Theater Group.

Since his debut in 1979, Enggoy has been on a remarkable trip around the Philippines, giving knowledge and joy to communities.

Enggoy and his puppet friends have been on a quest to reach out to young people who do not have access to television, the internet, or other modern technology.

Puppetry, one of the oldest forms of performing arts, is being utilized by the PIA as a tool for Communication for Development (C4D).

Enggoy’s natural charm and intellectual prowess continue to attract audiences of all ages, leaving a lasting impression on future generations. See the entire gang live with “Enggoy at ang Makulay Niyang Mundo” (Enggoy and his colorful world) on April 28 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon.

Visiting this year’s Philippine Book Festival is one way to support our local talents, ensuring that their stories and creativity continue to inspire us for years to come.

When we support local authors and artists, we aren’t only helping them succeed in their professions. We’re also enhancing our society’s cultural diversity. 

By purchasing their products, attending events, or sharing the word about them, we can celebrate variety, preserve our heritage, and foster innovation in our communities. 

Want to know more about the PBF 2024? Visit and register here:  https://www.philippinebookfest.com   (GLDG/PIA-NCR)

In other News

Sama-samang pagkilos upang labanan ang dengue

PBBM speech in Shangri-La Dialogue excellent articulation of PH challenges in WPS, Indo-Pacific developments — experts

DTI-CHED foster young entrepreneurs thru YEP-Project MARITES

Cabinet Officer for Cordillera commits full support to RTF- ELCAC

PhilHealth increases coverage for neonatal sepsis, bronchial asthma

PUP explores educational partnership with Manila City Jail

CSC chief to gov’t workers: Honor Philippine Flag

DPWH-Cordillera reports robust infrastructure as driver of economic growth

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• School Education /

✍️Essay on Festivals: Samples in 150, 250 Words

• Updated on  
• Nov 2, 2023

Festivals are the special occasions celebrated in every religion and country to follow their tradition . They are generally celebrated worldwide to pay tribute to God and Goddesses and to spread joy and positivity. India, known for its diversity and multiculturalism celebrates many festivals throughout the year. Festivals are the best part of the year as they contribute to the unity of the nation and add prosperity to the life of the people. India celebrates different categories of festivals such as regional festivals, seasonal festivals , annual festivals, and national festivals. Stay tuned and read the following essay on festivals!

Also Read: Speech on Dussehra in English

 Essay on Festivals of India 200 Words

Festivals in India are celebrated with great zeal. Indian festivals are worth witnessing as they are the most popular and colourful festivals. Be it Holi, the Queen Festival of Colours or Diwali the festival of crackers and rangoli, all are marked with great historical significance that tells about Indian Mythology. One of the most popular and biggest festivals in the world, Kumbh Mela, is also celebrated in India, where millions of devotees gather to offer their prayers.

Every festival has its own story and belief. People follow and respect their traditional values and do fasting on festivals like Chhath Puja , Govardhan Puja , Bhai Dooj , and Karwachauth. All these Indian festivals play an important role in uniting people belonging to different cultures in the same society. 

Apart from these festivals, Onam, Dussehra , Christmas, New Year, Raksha Bandha, etc are also celebrated in India. Republic Day , Gandhi Jayanti , and Independence Day are the National festivals of India which are government holidays in the Indian Calendar. 

Religious festivals include Eid-Ul-Fitr which ends with Ramadan celebrated by the Muslim community, Guru Nanak Jayanti held on 27 November 2023 to commemorate the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak Dev Ji celebrated by Sikhs, and Christmas celebrated on 25 December every year by Christians. 

Also Read: Why is Onam Celebrated: The Festival of Joy in Kerala 

Essay in Festivals 250 Words

India’s rich diversity and festivals unite people from different backgrounds. It joins people from different states and religions in a single thread for the celebration. Every occasion in India and different countries is celebrated with happiness and joy. Festivals bring joy and prosperity and create a sense of oneness.

The Kumbh Mela is one of the largest festivals in the world, which takes place at four pilgrimage sites in India; Ujjain, Prayagraj, Haridwar and Nashik. On this occasion, devotees take a ritual dip in the holy rivers of Shipra in Ujjain, Ganga-Yamuna-Sarasvati in Prayagraj, the Ganges in Hardwar, and Godavari in Nasik.

People follow the tradition of exchanging sweets and gifts on special occasions. National festivals are marked as Government holidays such as 2 October celebrated as Gandhi Jayanti, 26 January celebrated as Republic Day, and 15 August celebrated as Independence Day.

One thing which you find common in all festivals is cleaning the house, decorating, and worshipping God. Festivals are auspicious occasions that bring good health, wealth, joy, and prosperity into the lives of people. 

Apart from the National festivals, Pongal, Onam, Baisakhi and Bihu celebrated in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Punjab and Assam respectively are the seasonal festivals celebrated with very high energy by the people of that particular state. Farmers in India worship God and Goddess of agriculture on such seasonal festivals to seek their blessings and wish for good yields for the successive years.

Thus, the festivals in the given essay on festivals tell about various cultures and diversity in a particular country and about the customs followed by the people in festivals to make them grand and happening.

Also Read: Importance of Makar Sankranti

Relevant Blogs

Festivals hold a significant role in the human life. They are important to continue the traditional culture, religion, and practices of that particular religion and region. It plays a key role in uniting people and filling up the communication gaps thereby increasing the social dependency of people.

Festivals are extraordinary events celebrated to commemorate the traditions followed by our ancestors. It holds a significant role in joining the society and passing on the traditions to the future generations. They create an ambience of positivity, joy, and prosperity all around. Every region and religion follows their own festivals worldwide. 

Festivals are the source of happiness. They are the best part of the year. Festivals are celebrated with people belonging to different cultures and religions and it helps in uniting them and enjoying the feeling of oneness and togetherness. 

Here are 10 lines on why we celebrate festivals: Festivals are a chance for everyone to unite for a cause; It is considered auspicious to conduct prayers and worship God and Goddess. ; People of different religions follow different customs and practices to celebrate festivals.; Festivals create a happy atmosphere all around; In India, people celebrate many festivals throughout the year; Holi and Diwali are the two main festivals in India; Decorating the surroundings, cleaning the house, worshipping god, wearing new clothes, and sharing good wishes, and gifts are some of the important elements of any festival; Festivals are considered incomplete without sweets; The special occasion builds friendship among the people and increases interdependency; These special days are celebrated with utmost pomp and enthusiasm. 

For more information on such interesting topics, visit our essay writing page and follow Leverage Edu .

Kajal Thareja

Hi, I am Kajal, a pharmacy graduate, currently pursuing management and is an experienced content writer. I have 2-years of writing experience in Ed-tech (digital marketing) company. I am passionate towards writing blogs and am on the path of discovering true potential professionally in the field of content marketing. I am engaged in writing creative content for students which is simple yet creative and engaging and leaves an impact on the reader's mind.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Connect With Us

45,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today.

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

• Entertainment
• Environment
• Information Science and Technology
• Social Issues

Home Essay Samples Life

Essay Samples on Festival

4th of july festivals: celebrating independence day across america.

The 4th of July is a beloved American holiday celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. This star-spangled holiday is marked across the nation with fireworks, parades, barbecues, and community gatherings. One of the best ways to celebrate Independence Day is to...

• 4Th of July

Summerfest 2023: The World's Largest Music Festival Showcases an Eclectic Lineup in Milwaukee

Milwaukee's Summerfest has held its position as a venerable summer music tradition for over half a century. Recognized as "The World's Largest Music Festival," Summerfest curates top-tier musicians from diverse genres, gracing multiple stages over several days. The Summerfest 2023 lineup guarantees to maintain the...

Analysis of Challenges and Plans of the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival

In the assignment, I will reveal one of the weirdest festivals worldwide located in New Zealand. The Hokitika New Zealand Wildfoods festival represents a unique and differentiated festival model with no near equivalent in New Zealand, Australia or even worldwide. It contributes to the civic...

Analysis of the Douz Festival: to Feel the Spirit of Sahara

Camelback riding, rabbit hunting, storytelling and Bedouin wedding ceremonies all mark a specific type of nomadic lifestyle. The small town of Douz in Tunisia also considered the 'gateway to the great Sahara' where many nomads have passed, has turned the nomadic lifestyle into an international...

Ecological Restoration Through Waterfire Festival in California

“Ecological restoration is not only the rehabilitation of the environment, it is a celebration of a new relationship with nature and can be regarded as in some sense a new genre of ritual”. The restoration of the environment thorough embarking on new projects to celebrate...

• Environmental Protection

Stressed out with your paper?

Consider using writing assistance:

• 100% unique papers
• 3 hrs deadline option

One of the Most Popular Festival - Halloween

One apon a time, there stood a huge mansion,one where nobody dared to enter.It was outdated the grass was outgrown and very old. There was just one thing that always seemed off about the place. Everyday I passed by it ,it always seemed to get...

Carnival as a Form of Popular Performance

The practice of carnival, no matter where or when you find it, is richly steeped in tradition and ritualistic practices.  To make clear the juxtaposition of practices within this article, Burke discusses various popular performance practices that have manifested in carnival historically and cross culturally....

The Festival Known as “Mattu Pongal” or the “Pongal”

The second day of the festival is known as “Mattu Pongal” or the “Pongal” for cows, specifically bulls. We are thankful to the bulls because they are the animals who plough the land which men farm on to obtain their food. On the bulls we...

One of the Major Holiday Events: Halloween

As the seasons begin to change from Summer to Autumn, society begins to look forward to three major holiday events: Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. All of these holidays have traditions and customs that we continue to follow every year. The one that I want to...

• American Culture

Holi Festival and Vibrant Celebration of Colors

Holi is a very vibrant celebration of colors. We have to wait for a whole year. So we can enjoy the festival of color. Although, Holi is fun and joyous. It's also immensely damaging to your skin. The colors are not extracted from flowers but...

• Holi Festival

Indian Festivals And Importance Of Diversity

One of my favorite quotes is “The universe is made up of stories, not atoms.” I love partaking in conversations, particularly if it is intellectually stimulating. It makes me reevaluate my perspectives and further enhances my ability to relate to others. Given my life journey,...

The Origin Of Carnivals And How They Developed Worldwide Throughout The Centuries

Introduction In ancient Italy and Greece before the emergence of Christianity, people were called pagans and these pagans celebrated the end of winter and spring solstices and autumn and spring equinoxes. (Blešić et al., 2014) They continued these celebrations even after the birth of Christianity....

• Ancient Civilizations

The Nature and Customs of African Masquerades

Festivals are usually celebrated to mark the beginning or an end of a significant cultural or historical event. For Africans, almost all their festivals are done to celebrate the gods or their community heroes. During the slave trade, as Africans were enslaved in Caribbean plantations...

• African Masquerades

Count Down to August: Nigeria Major Festivals

The approach of a festival celebration in Africa can be liken to the coming of the bridegroom. It is a way of commemorating and celebrating African rich cultural heritage while strengthening the sense of belonging and community. The month of August is around the corner....

The Culture and Customs of Ganesh Chaturthi Festival

Ganesh Chaturthi festival 2019 wishing website and decorate your home awesome: We as a whole realize that Ganesh Chaturthi 2019 is almost upon us again, so in this article I going to disclose to you how we can finish our home or province and makes...

Culture and Festivities of the Hopi Tribe

Marriage Form The Hopi tribe had appeared to be monogamous which was regarded as being a strong hold to enter the after life. In other instances the high profile families would select a spouse of whom they would like their sons or daughters to get...

• The Hopi People

Pongal and Bhogi: Festival of New Crops, Changing Weather and Human Preparations

Sankranti Festival celebrates for three days in South India. Bhogi is the first of them. Bhogi Dhanurmas - the last day. There is a saying that Goddevi, born as part of Bhudevi, who fasts for Dhanurma, incarnates as the wife of Srirannat, is called Bhogi....

Connecting the Body and Spirit in Pongal Harvest Festival

When looking in depth at the ritual, gender roles are portrayed by what is seen to be ideal for a women and a man to do. In other words, gender is a socially constructed perspective that portrays what is expected of the behaviour, occupation or...

Cultural Background of the Day of the Dead in Mexico and U.S.

After reading the three out of five articles; Mexico's Special Relationship with Day of the Dead, What we can learn from U. S Day of the Dead Celebration, and An Ancient and Modern Festival. All three articles mentioned many similar factual information and descriptions, but...

Indian Holidays: Diwali and Durga Puja

India is considered to be a spiritual and holy land where several religions are followed and many deities are worshipped. In India, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism and Jainism are the main religions which are rigorously practiced and followed. The other native Indian religions include Buddhism, Jainism,...

Experiencing Sikh and Hindu Cultures Through Festivals (Vaisakhi, Diwali, Maha Shivaratri)

My partner, Piyush Dhir, and I chose to explore our cultures main celebrated festivals for our first cultural outing. Since our cultures originated in the Indian Subcontinent, we thought it would be interesting to explore the similarities and differences surrounding our topic. We chose to...

The Symbolization in Mardi Gras Festival

Introduction As mark Twain once said, an American has not seen the united states until he has send mardi gras. This statement might seem like an exaggeration but people from all over the world come and seen this time honored tradition come to life. Mardi...

The Establishment of the Republic Day and Festival in India

Republic Day is one of the great national festivals of India. It is celebrated on January 26th every single year to celebrate the day when the Constitution of India came into place. India was under the British’s rule for over hundreds of years, and Indians...

Globalization Impact on Festival Economy of India

Festivities have got vital place in Indian heritage. Versatile festivals can be seen in different religions or in Hindu itself there are different festivals for different cause. However people used to celebrate all festivals for happy and prosperous. In ancient India people used to celebrate...

• Globalization

Holi Festival: “Festival of Colors” or the “Festival of Love”

Holi, the “Festival of Colors” or the “Festival of Love”, is the celebration of the outset of the spring season, the welcome of warmth and happiness and symbolizes the victory of Good over Evil. It is the perfect occasion to boost your business by modernizing...

History of Holi: India’s Festival of Colors

Imagine standing in the middle of the crowd where all you can see is a burst of vibrant colors, upbeat dancing, and big smiles on others' faces. That will be the scene you’ll experience if you attend India’s Festival of Colors, which will happen on...

Holi: the Festival of Colors in India

Did you ever thought there could be a festival devoted to throwing colored powder at people and getting dirty, or we could say, colorful, on purpose? Well, there is. The Hinduism festival, Holi, is one of the most colorful festivals in the world, literally. In...

Holi Festival Or World's “Festival of Love”

The Holi Festival is a day that is celebrated all across the world. It can also be called the “festival of love”. All of the color brings joy to everyone and all forget all the hate they have for others. Through Three of Ninian Smart’s...

An Independent Perspective of Attending the AmericanMuscle Mustang Show

The American Muscle Mustang Car Show is a daylong event in Maple Grove Pennsylvania, at the Maple Grove Raceway. This is a place where die hard mustang enthusiasts gather to show off their cars, attend events, meet prestige vendors, compete in the car show, and...

The Variation in Geographical Perspectives of Hanuman

The name ‘Hanuman’ is one that is known all over the world, festivals are celebrated in various different cultures, and the stories of his amazing life have been translated into many different languages. Yet there are only a small handful of people who really know...

• Perspective

Tokyo In Spring: Sakura And Festivals

Like everywhere in Japan, spring in Tokyo means sakura (cherry) blossoms. This is an obvious reason to visit but by no means the only one. There are also traditional festivals, sumo, seasonal delicacies and a whole lot more in bloom in the city's parks and...

Concert Report: Wide Open Bluegrass Festival

For my concert report, I attended the Wide Open Bluegrass festival in Raleigh, North Carolina on September 29th. I arrived around four o’clock, four hours after the festival had opened up. The main stage was located at the Red Hat Amphitheater, there were other small...

• Concert Review

The Benefits Of Nuit Blanche Festival For Artists And Audiences

Nuit Blanche is an experience for new audiences as they are given a glimpse of different art institutions in Toronto and Scarborough. Another insight is that Nuit Blanche has become a huge attraction as it gave artists an opportunity to exhibit new ideas. My thoughts...

Symbiosis Between Nature & Music On The Festival Of Visual Music Of Lanzarote

The Festival of Visual Music of Lanzarote is an event that in 2018 celebrated its fifteenth edition. It was Ildefonso Aguilar who created it in 1989 with the sole intention of mixing music with a surprising natural environment, thus creating a different visual experience. To...

• Music Industry

Best topics on Festival

1. 4th of July Festivals: Celebrating Independence Day Across America

2. Summerfest 2023: The World’s Largest Music Festival Showcases an Eclectic Lineup in Milwaukee

3. Analysis of Challenges and Plans of the Hokitika Wildfoods Festival

4. Analysis of the Douz Festival: to Feel the Spirit of Sahara

5. Ecological Restoration Through Waterfire Festival in California

6. One of the Most Popular Festival – Halloween

7. Carnival as a Form of Popular Performance

8. The Festival Known as “Mattu Pongal” or the “Pongal”

9. One of the Major Holiday Events: Halloween

10. Holi Festival and Vibrant Celebration of Colors

11. Indian Festivals And Importance Of Diversity

12. The Origin Of Carnivals And How They Developed Worldwide Throughout The Centuries

13. The Nature and Customs of African Masquerades

14. Count Down to August: Nigeria Major Festivals

15. The Culture and Customs of Ganesh Chaturthi Festival

• Career Goals
• Perseverance
• Personality
• Being Different

Need writing help?

You can always rely on us no matter what type of paper you need

*No hidden charges

100% Unique Essays

Absolutely Confidential

Money Back Guarantee

By clicking “Send Essay”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement. We will occasionally send you account related emails

You can also get a UNIQUE essay on this or any other topic

Thank you! We’ll contact you as soon as possible.

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

A Chill Has Fallen Over Jews in Publishing

By James Kirchick

Mr. Kirchick is a contributing writer to Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail and the author of “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.”

This month, an account on X with the handle @moyurireads and 360 followers published a link to a color-coded spreadsheet classifying nearly 200 writers according to their views on the “genocide” in Gaza. Titled “Is Your Fav Author a Zionist?,” it reads like a cross between Tiger Beat and “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

The novelist Emily St. John Mandel, the author of “Station Eleven” and “Sea of Tranquility,” earned a red “pro-Israel/Zionist” classification because, according to the list’s creator, she “travels to Israel frequently talks favorably about it.” Simply for posting a link to the Israeli chapter of the Red Cross, the novelist Kristin Hannah was deemed a “Zionist,” as was the author Gabrielle Zevin for delivering a book talk to Hadassah, a Jewish women’s organization. Needless to say, the creator of the list — whose post on X announcing it garnered over a million views within a few days — encourages readers to boycott any works produced by “Zionists.”

The spreadsheet is but the crudest example of the virulently anti-Israel — and increasingly antisemitic — sentiment that has been coursing through the literary world since the Hamas massacre of Oct. 7. Much of it revolves around the charge of genocide and seeks to punish Zionists and anyone else who refuses to explicitly denounce the Jewish state for allegedly committing said crime. Since a large majority of American Jews (80 percent of whom, according to a 2020 poll , said that caring about Israel is an important or essential part of their Judaism) are Zionists, to accuse all Zionists of complicity in genocide is to anathematize a core component of Jewish identity.

Over the past several months, a litmus test has emerged across wide swaths of the literary world effectively excluding Jews from full participation unless they denounce Israel. This phenomenon has been unfolding in progressive spaces (academia, politics, cultural organizations) for quite some time. That it has now hit the rarefied, highbrow realm of publishing — where Jewish Americans have made enormous contributions and the vitality of which depends on intellectual pluralism and free expression — is particularly alarming.

As is always and everywhere the case, this growing antisemitism is concomitant with a rising illiberalism. Rarely, if ever, do writers express unanimity on a contentious political issue. We’re a naturally argumentative bunch who — at least in theory — answer only to our own consciences.

To compel them to express support or disapproval for a cause is one of the cruelest things a society can do to writers, whose role is to tell society what they believe, regardless of how popular the message may be. The drawing up of lists, in particular, is a tactic with a long and ignominious history, employed by the enemies of literature — and liberty — on both the left and the right. But the problem goes much deeper than a tyro blacklist targeting “Zionists.”

One of the greatest mass delusions of the 21st century is the belief that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians. This grotesque moral inversion — in which a genocidal terrorist organization that instigated a war with Israel by committing the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust is absolved of responsibility while the victim of Hamas’s attack is charged with perpetrating the worst crime known to man — began taking shape before Israel even launched its ground invasion of Gaza.

A charitable description of those imputing genocidal motivations to Israel is that they are ignorant, essentially believing the word to mean “large numbers of civilian casualties.” (Here it’s worth noting that the United Nations, to little notice, has significantly lowered its estimate of the number of women and children killed in Gaza.) For others, accusing Israel of genocide is an emotional outlet for expressing outrage at such a horrific loss of life. A third, more pessimistic, characterization of the ubiquitous genocide canard is that it is only the latest iteration of the ancient antisemitic blood libel, which held that Jews murdered gentile children in order to use their blood for religious rituals.

College students and professional activists using overheated and imprecise language to convey their strongly held beliefs is hardly uncommon, and much of the intemperate language being directed at Israel and its Zionist supporters can be attributed to the hyperbole that increasingly characterizes our political discourse. What should worry us more is when people who have dedicated their lives to the written word manipulate language for a political end, one that is stigmatizing Jews.

Nine days after the Oct. 7 attack, the popular website Literary Hub began publishing what has since become a near-daily torrent of agitprop invective against what it describes as the “rogue ethnostate” of Israel, which it routinely accuses of committing genocide. In March, after a mass resignation of its staff members , the literary magazine Guernica retracted a personal essay by a left-wing Israeli woman about her experience volunteering to drive Palestinian children to Israel for medical treatment. In her resignation letter, one of the magazine’s co-publishers denounced the piece as “a hand-wringing apologia for Zionism and the ongoing genocide in Palestine.”

Whereas antisemitism in the literary world used to lurk in the shadows, according to the Jewish Book Council’s chief executive, Naomi Firestone-Teeter, since Oct. 7, it has become increasingly overt. “The fact that people have felt so proud and open about it is a different beast entirely,” she said. One of the most disturbing developments in this regard has been the frequency and contempt with which the word “Zionist” is now spit from people’s mouths in the United States.

Until relatively recently, the use of “Zionist” as a slur was most commonly confined to Soviet and Arab propagandists, who spent decades trying to render the word the moral equivalent of “Nazi.” Today many progressives use the word in similar fashion, making no distinction between a Zionist who supports a two-state solution (which, presumably, most Jews in the overwhelmingly liberal literary world do) and one who believes in a “Greater Israel” encompassing the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. And while anyone can be a Zionist, I’ve found in my 20 years of reporting on antisemitism that many Jews essentially hear “Jew” when someone shouts “Zionist" at them.

The corruption of the words “genocide” and “Zionist” lies at the root of the controversy threatening to unravel PEN America, the storied writers’ organization. As with many a literary contretemps, it involves a cascade of open letters. In February a missive that gained almost 1,500 signatures was published demanding that PEN “wake up from its own silent, tepid, neither-here-nor-there, self-congratulatory middle of the road and take an actual stand against an actual genocide.” The dozens of statements PEN had issued by that time calling attention to the plight of writers in Gaza (who the letter, without citing evidence, claimed had been “targeted” by Israel for assassination) were insufficient. “We demand PEN America release an official statement” about the writers killed in Gaza the letter read, “and name their murderer: Israel, a Zionist colonial state funded by the U.S. government.”

On March 20, PEN acceded to the ultimatum that it endorse the call for a cease-fire. But that did not satiate its critics.

Last month, in advance of PEN’s annual literary awards ceremony, nearly half of the nominated writers withdrew from the competition. A subset of those writers then released another open letter , declaring, “Among writers of conscience, there is no disagreement. There is fact and fiction. The fact is that Israel is leading a genocide of the Palestinian people.” They accused PEN of “normalizing genocide,” denounced PEN for its “platforming of Zionists” and, most shamefully, called for the resignation of its Jewish chief executive, Suzanne Nossel, on account of her “longstanding commitments to Zionism.”

Along with eight other past presidents of PEN, Salman Rushdie signed a letter in defense of the organization , an intervention that earned him an “unclear” rating on the anti-Zionist blacklist. (He has braved far worse from Islamist zealots and their Western apologists.) PEN ultimately canceled both the awards ceremony and subsequent World Voices Festival.

Dissatisfaction with PEN’s purported lack of indignation over the deaths of Palestinian writers is a fig leaf. Where were the efforts by those now decrying PEN to protest the complete absence of freedom of expression that has characterized the Gaza Strip under 17 years of Hamas rule?

The real objectives behind the cynical weaponization of the word “genocide” and the authoritarian insistence that anyone who disagrees with it is an enabler of one are to shut down debate, defame dissenters and impose a rigid orthodoxy throughout the publishing world. It is a naked attempt to impose an ideological litmus test on anyone hoping to join the republic of letters — a litmus test that the vast majority of Jews would fail.

A campaign of intimidation, the sort of thing that happens to the dissident writers in closed societies whom PEN regularly champions, is afoot to pressure writers into toeing this new party line. PEN’s current president, Jenny Finney Boylan, recently said that she had heard from “many, many authors who do not agree with those withdrawing from PEN events and who do not wish to withdraw from our events themselves but are afraid of the consequences if they speak up.”

Compelling speech — which is ultimately what PEN’s critics are demanding of it — is the tactic of commissars, not writers in a free society. Censorship, thought policing and bullying are antithetical to the spirit of literature, which is best understood as an intimate conversation between the author and individual readers.

PEN’s detractors aren’t helping the Palestinian people with their whitewashing of Hamas. They’re engaged in a hostile takeover of a noble organization committed to the defense of free expression in order to advance a sectarian and bigoted political agenda.

Neil Gaiman, Taylor Jenkins-Reid, Ms. Mandel and other hugely successful authors need not worry that being denounced as a Zionist will hurt their careers. But the blacklists and the boycotts do not really target them. The actual targets of this crusade are lesser-known authors, budding novelists, aspiring poets and creative writing students — largely but not exclusively Jewish — who can feel a change in the air.

“I do now definitely have concern as a Jewish author — two years working on a novel that has absolutely nothing to do with Jews in any way, just because it says ‘National Jewish Book Award winner’ in my bio — that it may change the way readers see the work,” said a Jewish creative writing professor and novelist who spoke to me on the condition of being quoted anonymously.

No longer is being on the receiving end of a review bomb the worst fate that can befall a Jewish writer exploring Jewish themes; even getting such a book published is becoming increasingly difficult. “It’s very clear you have to have real courage to acquire and publish proudly Jewish voices and books about being Jewish,” a prominent literary agent told me. “When you are seen as genocidal, a moral insult to humanity because you believe in Israel’s right to exist, you are now seen as deserving of being canceled.”

There’s a distasteful irony in a literary community that has gone to the barricades fighting book “bans” now rallying to boycott authors based on their ethnoreligious identity. For a growing set of writers, declaring one’s belief that the world’s only Jewish state is a genocidal entity whose dismantlement is necessary for the advancement of humankind is a political fashion statement, a bauble one parades around in order to signify being on the right team. As was Stalinism for an earlier generation of left-wing literary intellectuals, so is antisemitism becoming the avant-garde.

James Kirchick is a contributing writer to Tablet magazine, a writer at large for Air Mail and the author of “Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .