Literary fans will unite as St. Louis literary magazine december premieres its St. Louis LitFest at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (3750 Washington Boulevard) on Friday, May 17.
The new festival is a production of local nonprofit literary magazine december.
“One of the parts of our mission is building community as well as publishing writers and artists at all stages of their careers,” says Jennifer Goldring, the magazine’s managing editor. “So we thought it would be great to have sort of a party/festival to really bring the literary and reading community together in St. Louis.”
From 6 to 10 p.m., guests will be able to enjoy a night of games, open mics, performances, a full bar, food, raffles and local literary organizations, including Boulevard magazine, Lindenwood University, WordUp! Open Mic, YourWords STL and more.
“We invited all the other literary magazines in St. Louis [and the]other literary organizations in St. Louis … to come and be part of the festival and have a table and provide a place to talk about what they do in the literary community,” says Goldring. “Then we've invited all the readers and writers in St. Louis to come and learn more about the literary community and figure out why they're part of it.”
At 8 p.m., there will be a guided exhibition tour of CAM’s current exhibit, Paul Chan: Breathers. The tour will focus on the artist’s publishing practice, Badlands Unlimited. Following that at 8:30 p.m., there will be readings and performances from Crystal Odellea, author of Trans Studies; Jayluvve, slam and spoken word poetry artist; and InnerGy, an award-winning poet.
“Our hope is that we're going to help people become more connected to what St. Louis has to offer in the literary community space, which is quite a lot,” explains Goldring. “I don't know that people realize how much St. Louis has going on in this area.”
In order to make this free event happen, december partnered with not only CAM for space but also the Novel Neighbor, an independent bookstore and community space in Webster Groves, and the St. Louis Poetry Center, which has a mission to support poets and audiences in St. Louis.
“This is our first year doing this, and we're really excited that the response has been amazing. We're at capacity with the number of organizations that can be involved, and then we've already gotten I think almost 100 RSVPs,” Goldring says. “We're really just hoping that it's just a great way to really bring the whole community together.”
To RSVP for LitFest, visit december magazine’s website.
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