Third annual Elgin Literary Festival returns this weekend
The third annual Elgin Literary Festival returns to downtown Elgin on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 27-28, with a mix of panel discussions, lectures, a poetry reading, and more. It will be held from 5 to 10:30 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Hemmens, 45 Symphony Way.
The two-day festival will feature speakers Callista Buchen, Christopher Castellani, Rosina Lippi, and Pat Verducci. The festival, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission, Hemmens Cultural Center, and Side Street Studio Arts.
"In our third year, we wanted to build on the success of last year as we created more of a community environment," said festival founder Karly Kirkpatrick. "All of the programming, as well as the newly expanded book signings and sales, lunch from Blue Box Café, and poetry readings, will all be held on the lower level of the Hemmens Cultural Center. So, no matter the weather, readers and writers can park their car and stay for the duration."
On Friday, a panel discussion on "Harry Potter and the Eternal Franchise" will be 5 to 6 p.m., followed by featured speaker Callista Buchen and "Raid the Other World: Writing Prose Poems" from 6 to 7:15 p.m. A panel on self-publishing will be held 6:30 to 7:15 p.m. Speaker Pat Verducci will speak on "Write Your Screenplay!" from 7:30 to 8:45 p.m. Elizabeth Harmon and A.J. Pine will discuss "So You Want to Write a Romance?" Area poets will share their poetic confessions in front of a live audience, accompanied by jazz by Accidentally on Purpose. "The Art of Confessing: A Live Poetry Event" will be 9 to 10:30 p.m.
On Saturday, Todd Stocke of Sourcebooks will speak on "Sourcebooks: The World of Publishing" from 10 to 11 a.m. Join Liliana Escobedo, Melissa Franic and Elizabeth Melvin, peer-reviewed journal editors, as they delve into the keys of an effective author bio in a workshop from 10 to 11 a.m. A workshop, "Pinterest and Instagram for Authors: The Social Media Marketing Tools You've Neglected," from 10:30 to 11:15 a.m. There will be a break for book signings and sales from over 20 authors, and lunch from Blue Box Café from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sarah Blossom Ware and Bart Scott will speak on "Podcasting as an Author" from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. A panel will discuss "Is Chicago Literature Gentrifying?" from noon to 1 p.m. Sara Donati and Rosina Lippi will speak on "Confessions of a Successful Novelist" from 1 to 2:15 p.m. Authors Sarah Blossom Ware and Bart Scott will discuss "Writing to Evoke Childhood Memories" from 1 to 2 p.m. Novelist Gint Aras will talk about "The Author as Product" from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. A panel on "Writers' Tales" will be held from 2:30 to 3:45 p.m. with the keynote speakers. Amy Cattapan will speak on "Writing for Young Readers" from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Author Donald J. Bingle will discuss "Writer on Demand" from 3 to 4 p.m. Author Christopher Castellani will speak on "The Art of Perspective" from 4 to 5:30 p.m.
Printed programs with full event descriptions are available around town in Bravo Magazine and at Side Street Studio Arts and a downloadable PDF version is available at www.SideStreetStudioArts.org.
Featured speakers:
• Callista Buchen is the author of poetry chapbooks "The Bloody Planet" and "Double-Mouthed." She is the winner of DIAGRAM's essay contest and the Langston Hughes award, with work appearing in Harpur Palate, Fourteen Hills, Puerto del Sol, Salamander, Whiskey Island Review, and many other journals. She teaches writing at Franklin College in Indiana.
• Christopher Castellani is the son of Italian immigrants and a native of Wilmington, Delaware. He resides in Boston, where he is the artistic director of Grub Street, one of the country's leading non-profit creative writing centers. He is the author of three critically-acclaimed novels, "A Kiss from Maddalena," winner of the Massachusetts Book Award in 2004; "The Saint of Lost Things," a BookSense (IndieBound) Notable Book; and "All This Talk of Love," a New York Times Editors' Choice and finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Literary Award. He is currently working on a new novel. "The Art of Perspective: Who Tells the Story," a collection of essays on writing, is now available from Graywolf. In addition to his work with Grub Street, he is on the faculty and academic board of the Warren Wilson MFA program and the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. In 2014, he was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship for fiction.
• Rosina Lippi/Sara Donati is a former academic and tenured university professor. Since 2000, she spends her time haunting the intersection where history and storytelling meet, wallowing in 19th-century newspapers, magazines, street maps, and academic historical research. And she never gets bored with any of it. Under the pen name Sara Donati, she is the author of the "Wilderness" series, six historical novels that follow the fortunes of the Bonner family in the vast forests in upstate New York. Her newest novel about the Bonner family is "The Gilded Hour." The new series jumps ahead past the destruction of the Civil War to follow Nathaniel and Elizabeth's granddaughters into the 20th century. Under her own name, Rosina writes contemporary novels and academic work. She lives on Puget Sound with her husband, daughter, two elderly dogs and a rambunctious cat.
• Pat Verducci has penned scripts for Touchstone Pictures, Witt Thomas Productions, and Disney's animation division. She wrote and directed a feature film for Trimark Pictures, and co-produced the award-winning documentary "Somewhere Between." For the past 10 years, she has taught screenwriting in UCLA Extension's creative writing program and recently served as a mentor at the Meryl Streep/IRIS Writer's Lab for Women in New York.