20th Yearly CityLit Competition | Daylong Celebration
Saturday, March 25 • 10am – 7pm
CityLit Venture in partnership with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra presents the CityLit Pageant, a reside and in-person, 3-day celebration featuring a stellar lineup of countrywide, regional, and area literary talent. This spring marks the 20th 12 months of the absolutely free, signature function with Lifting As We Climb, as the festival topic, championing the little, literary nonprofit that is operating to provide when attempting to establish. The daylong celebration on Saturday, March 25 at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall on 1212 Cathedral Street from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm, characteristics poet, cultural critic, and winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Very little Satan in The us, Hanif Abdurraqib, poet, co-creator, and writer for the Emmy-nominated internet sequence ‘Brown Girls’ Fatimah Asghar (If They Arrive For Us), Lambda Literary Finalist for Transgender Fiction Megan Milks (Margaret and the Mystery of the Missing Body), and a new partnership with Hedgebrook, a leading residency for ladies writers introduces acclaimed creator Carmen Maria Machado (In the Aspiration Property).
The literary celebration continues on Tuesday, March 28, with previous U.S. Poet Laureate Pleasure Harjo introduced in partnership with Chesapeake Shakespeare Enterprise and on Friday, March 31, CityLit joins Busboys and Poets – Baltimore to feature musical visitor artist Jahiti, along with Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize Life time Accomplishment Award winner Patricia Smith (Unshuttered Poems), and a host of celebrated poets to kick off Countrywide Poetry Month.
“We are thrilled to host the 2023 CityLit Competition at the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall,” claimed Mark C. Hanson, the BSO’s CEO & President. “There’s no superior prospect than this longstanding, substantial community festival to remind anyone that general performance and literary arts go hand in hand. As a result of this collaboration, the Baltimore Symphony is psyched to aid the remarkable get the job done of CityLit Challenge and welcome Baltimoreans of all ages into the Meyerhoff for this special and particular pageant.”
Competition highlights include Little Devils with Unchained Arms with poet, essayist, and MacArthur Fellow Hanif Abdurraqib (They Can not Destroy Us Until They Destroy Us) whose eager observations about songs and society in The us are a celebration of Black identification. He will be in dialogue with NYT ideal-advertising creator, and previous One particular Book Baltimore’s Jason Reynolds (Ain’t Burned All the Shiny). Debut novelist Fatimah Asghar (When We Were being Sisters) in Of Mourning & Memory discusses her new work discovering the lives of a few orphaned sisters and what it signifies to be queer and Muslim in The us with Nafisa Isa, Smithsonian’s Asian Pacific American Middle Software Supervisor.
In Hardly ever Really Like This, CityLit’s new partnership with Hedgebrook, situated in Whidbey Island, Washington, introduces girls writers in Baltimore and the East Coastline region to the prestigious residency committed to uplifting the imaginative written work of gals. “It is especially significant to have this link occur about by their Govt Director and Hedgebrook alumna, Carla Du Pree! Our like-minded companies are amplifying the voices of alumnae Carmen Maria Machado and Nicole Shawan Junior, (founder of Roots. Wounds. Text.) who will sign up for the illustrious line-up of writers and artists for the initial-at any time Hedgebrook emphasize event all through this time-honored celebration of literature,” states Amber Flame, Hedgebrook Application Director.
Read through our interview with former US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo here.