Get Lit! Festival 2025

Writing requires the writer to locate a narrative voice and plumb its depths, pursuing the story it has to tell. But what about pursuing the silences, portraying the voiceless, and revealing the unspeakable? Four writers of differing genres will discuss their experiences of finding meaning in silence. Hear from Pacific Northwest authors Margot Kahn, Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, Molly Olguín and Kristen Millares Young, whose poems, essays, and short fiction have been published in magazines such as the New England Review, The Sun, and The Guardian. They have also individually won several literary awards like the AWP Intro Awards Prize, PEN/O. Henry Prize, and the Nautilus award. These writers, through their variety of experience as well as publications, share practical strategies for structure and technique while also revealing their intuitive work to uncover the mysteries held in the silent spaces. Understanding the complexities of writing silence is essential to authentically telling the stories of the marginalized, recounting the way power uses silence to extract more power, and–perhaps counterintuitively—finding the divine. Purchase the author's books via Auntie's Bookstore!

Authors and journalists Tiffany Midge, Rena Priest, and Betsy Gaines Quammen gather to discuss writing about and to the Western United States. These writers often find themselves retelling, revising, and rewriting recurring narratives about who they are and what it means to live, work, and write in the West where they report on the animals, places, and issues we all care about. Tiffany Midge is a poet and journalist whose work blurs the line between genres and explores identity in the PNW with a sense of humor. Rena Priest’s work spans nonfiction and poetry and celebrates the natural beauty, history, and cultures of the West. Betsy Gaines Quammen is a historian and writer who collects stories to make sense of a place defined by colonization, extraction, rebellion, myth, beauty, and land. Don't miss this reading and conversation on rewriting the West! Purchase the author's books via Auntie's Bookstore!


Please fill out our festival survey after you have attended this event. The information you provide will help us obtain critical grant funding and will help make next year’s festival even better!

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!


Please fill out our festival survey after you have attended this event. The information you provide will help us obtain critical grant funding and will help make next year’s festival even better!

Although transgender people have existed in world cultures from time immemorial, what is new today is the way trans and nonbinary folx are languaging themselves into being. In this panel, trans and nonbinary poets of different ages discuss how their access to broader language for their gender and sexual expression comes through their and others’ poetry. Subhaga Crystal Bacon is a nonbinary, transmasc queer elder with multiple publications including her newest book, Transitory, which brings greater awareness to the death and mistreatment of trans folk. Tennison Black is a queer transmasc nonbinary writer whose poetry, as seen in their multi-award-winning book, Survival Strategies, focuses on defiance and displacement via the body politic. Newer to the writing community are writers Juno Williams, Gwendolyn Owens, and Fig DePaolo, all queer Spokane writers who contribute to the larger creative conversation through fiction and poetry, adding surprising elements of their personal life as well as the genre they specialize in. This intergenerational panel means to emphasize how, especially at this juncture in history, intersectional community is the key to bolstering one another and our work. Purchase the author's books via Auntie's Bookstore. 

Join us for a salon-style discussion centered on the power of poetry and its place in the world. Our annual Salon is a chance for 4-5 poets to sit down together to discuss their craft—how they came to it, how they sustain it, and what gifts it can bring to those they share it with. Each poet brings a unique perspective and vast experience to the table, and every year we are stunned at the magic that takes place within these conversations. This year’s Salon includes poets with award-winning debut collections alongside seasoned veterans with several collections and impressive accolades. Our 2025 Salon includes Danez Smith, author of four poetry collections, multi-award winner and MFA professor at Randolph College; Tennison S. Black, winner of the National Poetry Series of 2023 with their book, Survival Strategies; Subhaga Crystal Bacon, the author of four poetry collections including Transitory, a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; Margot Kahn, co-editor of a New York Times Editors’ Choice anthology and author of three other collections; and Rena Priest, who uses her published nonfiction poetry to address history and culture. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from some of the most talented contemporary poets from our region and beyond!


Purchase books by these poets via Auntie's Bookstore!