About Events

About Loft Events

The Loft offers a diverse array of literary events, reading series, book launches, and more. Please see our calendar listings—we encourage everyone to participate. Expand your literary network, get inspired, be entertained, or just support your local and global literary community.

Annual Events
Wordplay & Wordsmith

Each year, the Loft presents two major annual events—Wordplay and Wordsmith. Wordplay is a festival for readers of all kinds to come together, connect, and celebrate the year in books. Wordsmith is a career, connection, and craft conference for writers at all levels.

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Wordplay Wordsmith
Loft Themes
The Loft Presents Choice and Chance

Through the theme of Choice and Chance, the Loft will explore how much control we really have in our stories and lives and what do we leave to chance?

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Choice and Chance
Signature Events and Series

The Loft's signature, recurring events include the Mentor Series, Equilibrium, and Big Ideas. Learn more below.

Mentor Series Marker
Loft Mentor Series

The Loft Mentor Series holds six readings and craft conversations throughout the course of the program. Two emerging writers read from their work, along with one of the nationally acclaimed authors who is mentoring the participants. Readings are a blend of all three genres on which the Mentor Series focuses: fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.

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EQ Marker
Loft Equilibrium (EQ)

Equilibrium, EQ for short, is the Loft's ground-breaking and wildly successful series devoted to spoken word artists and audiences of color. Acclaimed as one of the nation's top spoken word venues, EQ combines an intimate, engaging atmosphere with energetic, packed houses. EQ has created a space where national talent shares the stage with local emerging artists.

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Big Ideas Graphic
Loft Big Ideas

Big Ideas is a series from the Loft that puts literature at the center of dynamic conversations and brings together readers and writers to explore the most pressing issues and questions facing our society today.

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Upcoming Events
Feb
12
2021
Sense of Adventure: Monsters and Creatures with Matthew Kessen
As part of the Loft's Sense of Adventure theme, we'll have a theoretical conversation around the foes and obstacles in many adventure stories: monsters and mythical creatures. Host Matthew Kessen will discuss these creatures and then answer hypothetical audience questions. 
Feb
21
2021
More Than A Single Story: Crossing Generational & Racial Lines
The Twin Cities has developed a complex intersectional culture between communities, organizations and artists of color. This panel presents two generations of collaborations between African American and Asian American literary artists. This panel will discuss what their collaborations can tell us about race in America—in the past, in the present and the future.
Mar
5
2021
Big Ideas: Sense of Adventure with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Carolyn Finney
Many of us in Minnesota revel in the joys of getting outside but the "great outdoors" isn't necessarily as transcendent, as universal, or as one-size-fits-all as it's often been portrayed. Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Carolyn Finney join us for this Big Ideas conversation on the ways our racial identities shape our relationships to the natural world.
Can I Read at the Loft?

The Loft is committed to providing authors and audiences with unique events that deepen their understanding of the craft of writing, and engage them in lively and thought-provoking discussions. We strive to produce events that encourage crowd participation, build audiences for diverse authors, and offer learning opportunities to the more than 4,000 students who take our classes. These goals are the foundation of our programming.

We receive many more requests than we can accommodate to produce events. Read on to learn about the types of events we host and sponsor, how to rent our performance hall for your own reading or event, and other ways we help promote authors' books.

Can I Read at the Loft?