Get Lit! Festival 2025

Writing can sometimes feel like a lonely art: the solitary act of creation between the writer and the page. But that doesn’t have to be the case. While academia often offers writers an opportunity to share and shape one another’s work, there can be many avenues for finding a creative community exchanging process methods, and sharing avenues for inspiration. Join authors Maggie Smith, Molly Olguin, Tara Campbell, Jennifer Yu, and Lauren Westerfield in a discussion about the beauty of artistic community and writerly connections, both inside and outside academia. Maggie Smith is an award-winning poet and nonfiction author whose latest book, Dear Writer, is a practical guide to the writing life for artists of all experience levels and backgrounds. Molly Olguín is a Seattle-based fiction writer whose debut collection The Sea Gives Up the Dead is forthcoming from Red Hen Press. Tara Campbell writes a broad variety of genres, including poetry, essays, short stories, and vivid speculative fiction novels; she currently teaches creative writing at Hugo House, John Hopkins University, and Clarion West, among other places. Jennifer Yu is a young adult novelist currently studying and teaching at the University of Idaho; her most recent book, Grief in the Fourth Dimension, explores how identity and community affect the way our lives (and deaths) are remembered. Lauren Westerfield, is a local poet, essayist, and professor whose debut collection Depth Control is forthcoming from Unsolicited Press. Don’t miss this powerful discussion on creativity and community. Purchase the author's books via Auntie's Bookstore!


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