April 21st thru 25th: 2026 Cleveland Poetry Festival

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

For more information and to register, please visit https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/cleveland-poetry-festival-2026.

2025 Cleveland Poetry Festival on April 25-27

From our friends at Literary Cleveland: 

For complete info and to register, please visit https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/cleveland-poetry-festival-2025. 

Cleveland Inkubator - a free writing conference - begins soon!

Hosted by our friends at Literary Cleveland. Click the pic for more information.

April 12: Zach Savich and Joyelle McSweeny kick off the Cleveland Poetry Festival

2024 Cleveland Poetry Festival: April 12-14

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

Cleveland Poetry Festival: April 12-14

We’re thrilled to announce that Cleveland Poetry Festival is back Friday-Sunday April 12-14 at Cleveland Museum of Art Community Art Center on West 25th.

This year, we're exploring an exciting new theme: the intersection of POETRY + ART, commemorating visual poetry, the interplay between image and text, the use of type in art, and the ways poetry and virtual art influence each other.

🖊️ Draft new poems in workshops on poetry & photos, ekphrastic writing, and comics

🗨️ Participate in dynamic panel discussions on looking, image & text, and artists/poets

📚 Browse the book and art fair with booksellers, journals, presses, and artists

🎤 Attend readings and join the open mic to share your work

Local presenters include Northeast Ohio poets and artists Mansa L. Bey, Ali Black, Donald Black, Danny Caine, Siaara Freeman, Carrie George, Stephanie Ginese, J.P. Hernandez, Kevin Latimer, Michael Lorderstedt, Philip Metres, Wendy Partridge, Alyssa Perry, and Zach Savich.

Visiting authors include Lauren Haldeman (poet, graphic artist, and Iowa Arts Fellow), Joyelle McSweeney (Guggenheim fellow and co-founder of Action Books), Diana Khoi Nguyen (author of Ghost Of which was a finalist for the National Book Award), and Cindy Juyoung Ok (author of Ward Toward, which won the Yale Younger Poets Prize).

Space is limited so don't miss out! Register here

Applications Being Accepted for an $8,000 Fellowship

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

 

Apply for a paid $8,000 four-month Amplify Fellowship to create a literary project for your community.

 

Two fellows will work with Literary Cleveland staff from February-May 2024 and receive funding, resources, mentorship, and support to pilot a new community project. Fellows will gain experience in literary programming, event planning, communications, and community outreach.

 

This opportunity is intended for Northeast Ohio writers who are members of groups that have been historically underrepresented in the writing and publishing industry.

 

Apply by December 11 at
https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/amplify-fellowship. 

Coming Early October in the Land:

[Shared from the Literary Cleveland newsletter:]

Thrity Umrigar & Karan Mahajan

Wednesday, October 4 at 7pm at CCPL Parma-Snow

Spoken Word: Poetry Open Mic Nights

Thursday, October 5 at 7pm at Kaiser Gallery

Literary Citizenship Seminar

Saturday, October 7 at 4:30pm virtual with Ashland University

Con Tu Variety Show

Sunday, October 8 at 10pm at Dunlaps Corner Bar

Indigenous People's Celebration

Monday, October 9 at 8pm virtual with Ashland University

Poetry ~ Cathy Barber & EF Schraeder

Wednesday, October 11 at 7pm at Macs Backs-Books on Coventry

Broadsides & Ephemera featuring Judith Mansour

Thursday, October 12 at 7pm at Loganberry Books

Cris Harris & Mary Quade

Saturday, October 14 at 7pm at Macs Backs-Books on Coventry

Literary Cleveland's Inkubator Conference Kicks off This Week!

Click the image for more info.

Poetry Ride Out: Part of this year's Inkubator

 

CLE Poetry Festival: April 21-22

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

Draft new poems, advance your craft, meet publishers, and celebrate poetry with the best poets and editors in the city.

Join Literary Cleveland, CWRU English Department, CSU Poetry Center, Grieveland, and Mac's Backs Books for the Cleveland Poetry Festival April 21-22.

Spots are limited. Register here.

Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator Writing Conference: September 6 through 10

 

 

Do you write stories or poems? Want to learn more about fiction, creative nonfiction, or poetry? Looking for ways to share your story or publish your work?  

 

Check out this free writing conference! 

 

Literary Cleveland’s Inkubator Writing Conference is one of the largest free writing festivals in the country. Free virtual panels September 6-8 will lead up to a two-day in-person conference at the Cleveland Public Library on September 9-10.

• Draft new writing with workshops in each genre

• Improve your craft with talks by expert authors

• Connect with fellow writers and publishers at events, readings,
  and a book fair

• Learn how to publish your work with sessions on finding an agent,
  developing a book proposal, and submitting to journals

Whether you are new or experienced, dedicated or curious, and even if you don't consider yourself a writer—you should attend! In addition to fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and publishing events, there are also sessions on starting a podcast, reviewing books, posting about books on YouTube, dealing with impostor syndrome, and much more.

This conference is free to attend but registration is required. Register today before workshops fill up!

View the full schedule and register for free at: https://inkubator.litcleveland.org/ 

 

Gordon Square Review Hiring!

Gordon Square Review is hiring a paid Poetry Editor and a volunteer Social Media Editor. If you live in Northeast Ohio, you may apply by July 10.

gordonsquarereview.submittable.com/submit

Lakefront Cleveland Poetry Festival begins April 24th

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

Ohio Poets: Don't miss the virtual Lakefront Cleveland Poetry Festival April 24-May 1 with Literary Cleveland, CSU Poetry Center, and Grieveland. 

Over the course of one week, you will work with poets and editors to draft new pieces, share your work, and learn where and how to publish.

Presenters and instructors include Kaveh Akbar, Mary Biddinger, Ariana Brown, Hayan Charara, Stephanie Ginese, Quartez Harris, Kamden Hilliard, Valerie Hsiung, Brendan Joyce, Kevin Latimer, Ephraim Nehemiah, Eric Odum, Drew Pham, Hilary Plum and Rachel Wiley.

You can register for individual events or sign up for the full festival and save.

https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/lakefront-cleveland-poetry-festival

Paid $1,000 Internships with Literary Cleveland

Literary Cleveland is now accepting applications for two $1,000 internships for spring 2022.

Interns will have the opportunity to assist with literary arts programs and events, support Gordon Square Review literary journal, and develop their own project.

These internship opportunities are intended for members of historically underrepresented groups in the writing and publishing industry. Our goal is to provide skills training, career advancement opportunities, and support to these writers to help address the longstanding lack of diversity in the writing community.

Internships are 5-10 hours per week, and each intern will be compensated $1,000 for 10 weeks of work from February through April 2022. Most of the work will be done remotely via Zoom.
 
Application deadline: December 20.

Learn more and apply here.

Literary Cleveland Inkubator to feature Claudia Rankine, Viet Thanh Nguyen, and New Yorker Writers

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

 

This summer, Literary Cleveland’s annual Inkubator Writing Conference will take place virtually from July 11-25 with 31 free events totaling 78 hours of literary programming.  

 

The 2021 Inkubator will offer a wide range of interactive classes, craft talks, open mics, and panel discussions. This year’s conference features 11 multi-session workshops including teen and intergenerational classes as well as a printmaking and bookbinding workshop for those interested in making their own physical book.  

 

Nationally-recognized writers who will participate include Viet Thanh Nguyen in conversation with Thrity Umrigar and a panel of New Yorker writers originally from Cleveland: Andy Borowitz, Marry Norris, and Kathryn Schulz. An all-star lineup of local authors will lead panels on writing in prisons, solutions journalism, ethical representation in literature, how storytelling can affect social change, and writing about illness beyond the pandemic. Plus four editors from major New York publishing houses will discuss state of the industry and provide feedback on participant’s first paragraphs.  

 

The two-week event will be capped off by a keynote reading and discussion with renowned author Claudia Rankine. Rankine, presented by Cleveland Public Library. Rankine is a MacArthur fellow and the author of Just Us: An American Conversation (2020) and Citizen: An American Lyric, which won the 2015 National Book Critic’s Circle Award in poetry. 

 

Similar to last year, nearly all of the events will take place digitally this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. However there will be an in-person outdoor pop-up event at the Cleveland Public Library Eastman Garden on Saturday, July 17 featuring a book fair, DJ, food and drink vendors, and a community building workshop with an open mic.  

 

The 2020 Inkubator is supported by Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, the Cleveland Public Library, the Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities, the Northeast Ohio MFA Program, Mac’s Backs Book, Loganberry Books, Appletree Books, Hathaway Brown and the Press Club of Cleveland.  

 

Literary Cleveland is a nonprofit committed to helping people “explore other voices and discover their own.” The organization is a community of writers committed to bringing people into the world of words by providing educational writing opportunities at all levels, promoting new and existing literature of the highest quality, and advancing Northeast Ohio as a vital center of diverse voices and visions. 

 

To register and for more information, visit our website.

Write the Beats with Ray McNiece

From Cleveland Heights Poet Laureate Ray McNiece:

Write the Beats

A Workshop of Beat Writer Prompts

Beat era poets have had a profound influence on modern culture and mores as well as contemporary poetics—in particular performance poetry. Write the Beats is a workshop of Beat poetry prompts: Each of the six weeks will use a prompt based on a poem by a prominent beat era poet: Ginsberg, Snyder, Ferlinghetti, DiPrima, Kaufman and Kerouac. Prompts will explore themes of political poetry/identity, environmentalism, feminist poetry, surrealism, and spontaneous bop prosody. We will also look at works by Baraka, Waldman, and Corso for the poetry of rebellion, beat spirituality and neo romanticism.

Online via Zoom on Thursdays from 6pm-8pm April 22-May 27th

Register to receive the zoom link and class instructions. https://www.litcleveland.org/classes-workshops/write-the-beats-a-workshop-of-beat-poetry-prompts

 

Ray McNiece is the author of nine books of poems and monologues, most recently Love Song for Cleveland, a collaboration with photographer Tim Lachina, and Breath Burns Away: New Haiku. He toured Russia with Yevgeny Yevtushenko. He also toured Italy twice with legendary beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and was writer in residence at the Kerouac House in Orlando, Florida.

Be Part of Lit Cleveland's 2020 Celebration of Northeast Ohio Writers

From our friends at Literary Cleveland:

* * * * *

WE WANT TO CELEBRATE YOU!

2020 has been a long year and boy do we need good news now more than ever. That is why we are kicking off our second annual Celebration of Northeast Ohio Writers!

We want to hear it all! What you've published this year, whether it was a full book or just an individual poem, story, or essay. Did you win any writing contests? Any other good news? Let us know!

All you have to do is give us the information about your writing achievements in the past year via this form: https://forms.gle/DbqbSLWEudE6XEs67. Then we will publish our Celebration the last week of December, through our newsletter and on social media. This is one more way we are creating a vibrant literary community, by letting everyone know how active, involved and amazing our Northeast Ohio writers are.

So please let us know about your accomplishments in the past 12 months using this form: https://forms.gle/DbqbSLWEudE6XEs67. Also, let others know about our Celebration so they can participate!

* * * * *

Learn more about Literary Cleveland at http://www.litcleveland.org/.

Follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

2019 Cleveland Inkubator Week

It's time for the 2019 Inkubator, organized by Literary Cleveland. The Cleveland Inkubator is Northeast Ohio's largest free annual festival for writers and readers! This year the conference will be held in coordination with the Cleveland Public Library's 150th anniversary celebration. Join us for writing workshops, craft talks, panels, readings, and a resource fair featuring all the greatest local bookstores, presses, lit journals, writing groups, and literary organizations.

See the full schedule and register for FREE today at https://www.litcleveland.org/events-programs/inkubator-2019. 

Words On Fire: A Remembrance of the Cuyahoga River Fire now online

Freighter on Cuyahoga. Photo by GL.

The Cleveland Lit sponsored a staged reading, Words On Fire: A Remembrance of the Cuyahoga River Fire, as part of the Cleveland Humanities Festival, with poems celebrating the Cuyahoga or Cleveland or commemorating the 50th anniversary of the great Cuyahoga River fire, with contributors from Alberto Montero, Amy Phipps, David J. Adams, David Lee Garrison, DT McCrea, Gail Bellamy, Geoffrey Landis, Jeremy Mark Ritch, Jill Sell, Josh Davis, Lee Chilcote, Maria Wolfe, Marsha McGregor, Mary Turzillo, Melissa Warren, Meredith Holmes, Theresa Gottl Brightman, Toni K. Thayer, and Vince Robinson.

• The poems are now available on the Literary Cleveland website