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 If

Through the theme of If, the Loft will explore the most powerful question in starting a story: "What If?"

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Loft If Theme Graphic
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
May
26
2020
How'd You Do That? Tips and Tricks Learned Through the Loft's Wordplay for Great Virtual Conversations
Since the Loft pivoted to move Wordplay, our 100-author book festival online, we've received numerous inquiries about how we pulled it off. As a staff, we don't have the capacity to answer all the questions we're receiving individually, so we thought we'd pull together a webinar session to go over our process.

We'll talk through our programming and format choices, how we connected with speakers and got them on board, and go behind-the-scenes to show you the technology platforms (Crowdcast, Zoom, & OBS), choices, setup, and approaches that helped us deliver our virtual programming. We'll leave time at the end of Q&A.
May
29
2020
Mentor Series Reading with Melissa Febos and Gretchen Marquette
The Loft Literary Center Presents a 2019-2020 Loft Mentor Series Reading with mentors Melissa Febos and Gretchen Marquette and fellows Michael Garberich, Patti Kameya, Claudette Webster, and Gen Del Raye.
Jun
5
2020
Mentor Series Reading with Jennine Capó Crucet and Junauda Petrus
The Loft Literary Center Presents a 2019-2020 Loft Mentor Series Reading with mentors Jennine Capó Crucet and Junauda Petrus and fellows Nicola Koh, Rachel Castro, Jennifer Hildebrandt, and Tara McDaniel.
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?