Steph Opitz

Founding Director of Wordplay

Steph has curated literary events and festivals around the country—as the literary director of the Texas Book Festival, the fiction co-chair of the Brooklyn Book Festival, on the programs team for the PEN World Voices Festival, among others—and is thrilled to be the founder and director for the Loft's Wordplay annual book festival in Minneapolis, her hometown. She currently serves as a judge for Book of the Month club, as an advisory board member for the Portland Book Festival, and on the junior committee for the National Book Foundation. Steph was the books reviewer for Marie Claire magazine for six years, and her book reviews can also be found in Garden & Gun, Departures, Kirkus, and elsewhere. Steph is an alumnae of the U of M (BA in English) and Cal State (MA in English). She loves recommending and talking about books, which is why she recommends you mark your calendar to attend Wordplay in May 2019.