2019 Get Lit! Programs
Celebrate 21 Years.

Get Lit! Programs celebrated its 21^st year this April with dozens of events, outstanding authors, festival-inspired food and drink, and our second annual book fair at the Montvale Event Center.

We presented events throughout downtown Spokane, Coeur D’Alene, and on Eastern’s campuses in both Cheney and Spokane. We are thankful to our many sponsors, including the many Eastern programs and departments who helped us to bring in New York Times best-selling author Roxane Gay for our headlining reading.

We were also lucky enough to present Tommy Orange, winner of the PEN/Hemingway award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; Kaveh Akbar, a major new voice in contemporary poetry; Claudia Castro Luna, Washington State’s Poet Laureate; and many other writers with a diverse range of important stories to tell.

Surveys showed that hundreds of our attendees were attending the festival for the first time. As Get Lit! continues to grow, it is our mission to continue to prioritize diversity and to serve EWU students along with our vibrant literary community.

This year we presented free events to students in EWU’s Intro to Literature course, American Indian Studies students, and others, including students from Cheney High School, On Track Academy, the Community Colleges of Spokane, and more. We also held special private events for students and young people, including sending writers to work one-on-one with patients at Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital.

Get Lit! also received many honors this year, including an Inclusion Award from Spokane Arts for our dedication to bringing diverse authors to the festival each year from our community and beyond. We also won a Washington State Governor’s Arts Award for our contributions to the cultural vitality of our state. We were also nominated for EWU’s Diversity and Inclusion Award.

Visit our website for more information on becoming a sponsor for next year’s festival, or how to work with us to bring high-quality educational programming from best-selling writers to your classrooms. We are also currently open for submissions for Get Lit! 2020. Learn more and submit via getlitfestival.org.

This year’s Get Lit! Festival is April 22-28 at venues in downtown Spokane, Cheney and Coeur d’Alene. The full schedule of more than 40 events and panel discussions, along with a roster of some 50 festival authors, is available on www.getlitfestival.org. Most events are free; tickets to headlining events are available here (TicketsWest).

Authors highlighting this premier literary festival include Roxane Gay, Kaveh Akbar, Tommy Orange, Leni Zumas, Jess Walter and Sharma Shields for a week of free and low-cost readings, panel discussions, craft classes and more.

Get Lit! Programs celebrated an impressive milestone this April: this year’s festival marked the program’s 20th anniversary, and it was a week to remember! The festival kicked off with a ’90s-themed reading and the release of a 20th-anniversary anthology. The anthology featured work from many of the fantastic writers who have taken part in the festival during the past two decades, including such legends as Tess Gallagher and Robert Bly. Readers at the kickoff event included Hanif Abdurraqib, Chelsea Martin, Jess Walter and many others.

The festival featured 5o events this year, the most in Get Lit!’s rich history, including a sold-out evening with New York Times bestselling author Anne Lamott. The festival also featured craft classes with highly sought after writers like Maggie Smith and Brit Bennett, outdoor readings, children’s activities, poetry slams, Pie & Whiskey, and even literary-themed happy hours.

Get Lit! is housed within EWU, but it is a nonprofit program that relies on community and university sponsorships, grants, ticket and merchandise sales, donations and other fundraising efforts. Visit our website for more information on becoming a sponsor for next year’s festival, or to find out how to be part of next year’s lineup.