UKIAH — Litfest, a free literary festival that features author readings and writing workshops, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 30 in the Lowrey Library building on Mendocino College, located at located at 1000 Hensley Creek Road in Ukiah.
Eight writing workshops include writing for children and young adults. Participants will work with character development, storytelling, publishing, writing haiku, spontaneous writing and cross cultural poetry. LitFest will also feature a round-robin poetry reading to celebrate National Poetry Month.
Twenty authors ? including Jean Hegland, Jody Gehrman, Natasha Yim, Doris Eraldi, Molly Dwyer, and Terena Scott ? will present workshops, do readings and talk with fans of reading and writing. Poets Armand Brint, Theresa Whitehill, Jabez (Bill) Churchill and Ricardo Stocker will offer poetry workshops during the same time.
New this year is the final round-robin poetry reading, with 10 poets taking the stage to offer up their particular views of the world. Featured poets include Sandra Wade, Steve Hellman, Dan Barth, Ethel Mays and some of the workshop presenters.
“It seems like we needed to celebrate National Poetry Month in a big way and having a larger round-robin reading is a wonderful way to end a great day of workshops,” John Koetzner, head librarian at the college said. “We”re lucky that the Mendocino College Foundation and Friends of the Mendocino College Library have worked so hard to keep events like this going despite the difficult times.”
Also on hand will be some other authors and books vendors including Tenacity Press. Attendees are invited to attend as many of the workshops or readings as they wish. For more information or workshop sign-ups, go to www.mendocino.edu/litfest or call 468-3051.
