Much overdue, I’m back to recap Lit Youngstown’s 7th annual Fall Literary Festival. Who can put into words the inspiration and joy that happens when a couple hundred members of the literary community come together to create, share, and add to our towering TBRs, of course. (And did I mention nearly 50 sessions focused on various genres of writing and the writing process–how to choose, how to choose?) And, all in one fantastic Ohio city with the best Italian food around and against a backdrop of changing leaves for some extra fall magic. Well, I’ll give it a try…

Perhaps what I love most about this festival is that I can reinvent my creative self each time. I make it a habit to step outside my usual writerly lane and try something new.

Day 1

The first day of the festival I did just that. Parma, Ohio, Poet Laureate, workshopper extraordinaire, and friend Jeremy Jusek started off the day with a craft talk called “Verbal Alchemy: Visualizing Poetic Structure as a Formula.” If you couldn’t tell, Jeremy is a science guy in addition to being a poetry guy. He used chemical formulas and definitions to help “shake up” the structure of our poems. The ultimate goal: “To give structure to figurative language.” My major takeaways: the graphing of a reader’s reaction to a poem to illustrate the overcoming of a reader’s ground state to the point of truly feeling. Also, the idea of developing unit cells for a poem. (For instance a unit cell might consist of 2 similes or metaphors and one question. A poem might contain 6 of these units.)

Maybe it’s my uncertainty with writing poetry that makes me to want to learn all I can about poetic structure, but I stayed in the poetry lane that morning and attended superstar poet Sandra Beasley’s talk: “Lyric A to Z: Exploring Abecedarian Forms in Poetry and Creative Nonfiction.” If the term “Abecedarian” is new to you, you’re in good company. From Sandra’s handout: “In an ‘abecedarian,’ consecutive lines, sentences, or paragraphs lead with consecutive letters of the alphabet. Note that abecedarians can use any language system, not just American English.” (Abecedarian poetry and a Prince fan? Check out a fantastic example by poet Randall Man called, of course, “Alphabet Street.”)

Another highlight of the day was sitting in on the conversation between poet, essayist, and educator Ross Gay and poet and educator Jennifer Sperry Steinorth. Much of the discussion was pedagogy-focused. They discussed the MFA workshop, a process that has received close scrutiny in recent years. The traditional way, Ross feels isn’t “good for our soul or our work.” Instead he tries to stick close to what he notices on the page. His workshop goals are not a stellar poem or essay but are “care and imagination” in the class.

For my last session of the day, I moderated a roundtable led by author, editor and educator Meagan Lucas (whom I interviewed about her debut novel years ago for Parhelion and was excited to meet irl!). Called “I’m a Lit Mag Editor: Ask Me Anything,” the session allowed participants to get a behind-the-scenes on just what rises to the top of the “slush pile.” A couple tips I took with me: the fiction word count sweet spot for Reckon Review, where Meagan is EIC : about 3,000 words; and don’t forget the importance of a catchy title (when that’s all lit mag readers see in their queue!).

Last, if you’ve been around these blog parts for a while, you know Ross Gay’s work has inspired some of mine, including this essay. And so I was prepared to be moved by his reading at the beautiful, historic St. John’s Episcopal Church–much from his new book of essays, Inciting Joy. But reader, I wasn’t just whelmed but overwhelmed. Ross’s mission of joy has been a guiding light not just for my fledgling essays and poetry, but for a new path where my art and faith can live together. And (in 2023, as I’m sure you can imagine) that’s a lot.

Day 2

The next day started off with a fantastic author reading. One essayist, my friend and editing co-conspirator Renée K. Nicholson; novelist Jason Kapcala, whom I interviewed here; and two poets, Amy M. Alvarez and Randi Ward read from their creative work “set in the mountains and hollers of Appalachia and the hardscrabble steel towns of the rust belt.” Themes of place and displacement ran through these works and I found myself transported–just what a creative reading should do!

The next session found me back in my fiction-writing lane. Novelist Alison Stine focused on “the urgency of cli-fi as we deal with the worsening impacts of climate change” in her craft talk called “Writing Climate Fiction as the World Burns.” Alison has a really inspiring way of talking about writing, even if she writes dystopian stories that deal with tough stuff–like the end of the environment and nature as we know it. It’s clear writing has saved Alison time and again. Writing, she said “is making people sit up straight,” and is also something that can “give us hope” and “give us a way.” And my practical takeaway from her session: wait for your characters to start acting before you start to write your ideas.

My final session of the festival found me marveling at the difference storytelling and writing can make–not just on our spirits but on our whole selves and in the ways we care for one another. Dani Naffziger led an inspiring talk called “Collaborative Writing with Adults with Disabilities,” a writing service she says “provides tangible and rewarding benefits for all involved,” highlighting stories from a population “rarely represented” and introducing “new writing processes for established and emerging writers.”

Under the umbrella of The Healing Impact of Writing, for the other part of the session West Virginia University Humanities Center director Renée K. Nicholson and physician Ryan McCarthy talked about their Healthcare is Human initiative. Through a unique partnership between WVU Medicine and the WVU Humanities Center, the initiative promotes the work of narrative medicine and health humanities. Its seeds were planted during the pandemic, when Dr. McCarthy began journaling about his own experiences and then gathering the stories of his fellow front line workers. He has said: “…projects like this, which highlight the real human stories of healthcare workers, nurture our own humanity.”

My own humanity certainly nurtured, my writing self restored, I left the festival inspired by the work of my fellow writers and by what’s to come. Thank you to Lit Youngstown director Karen Schubert and all who make it happen, year after year. And trust me, you won’t want to miss next year’s festival. Details here.

Now, tell me in the comments, did you attend the festival? What was the highlight for you? Do you attend writing conferences in general, book fairs? What gets your creative juices flowing?

Hankering for Rust Belt author interviews, book reviews, and more? Check out my categories above. I hope you’ll follow me here, if you don’t already, so you never miss a (quite infrequent) post. Thanks! ~Rebecca