Last spring, as I was getting ready to launch the Read Street blog, I stopped by the Enoch Pratt central library on a warm Saturday for the annual CityLit Festival. The lobby was filled with local writers and poets, as well as representatives of journals, publishing houses and literary organizations.
There was an amazing energy in the room. Amazing because on most days, the Baltimore area's literary community is split into bits and pieces: lectures, books clubs, poetry readings and author appearances. But the CityLit Festival, like the fall Baltimore Book Festival, brings lots of those pieces together to create a critical literary mass. It was an inspiring sight and seemed to be a good omen for the blog.
You don't have to wait long for the 2009 festival - it will be 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Pratt, and features Junot Diaz, who won a Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Other writers include Mark Doty, whose poetry won a 2008 National Book Award; Liza Mundy, author of a Michelle Obama biography; Jennifer Baszile, author of The Black Girl Next Door; and poets Michael Collier and Elizabeth Spires.
