LitFest 2021 Goes Virtual

LitFest 2021 Header

We hope you’ll join us for the sixth annual LitFest, hosted in conjunction with Amherst College. This year’s festival features 2020 National Book Award for Fiction winner Charles Yu and finalist Megha Majumdar, National Book Award for Poetry finalists Natalie Diaz and Tommye Blount, and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum, among others. 

This year, to celebrate Amherst College’s Bicentennial, we’ll have a very special set of readings by The Common‘s very own Literary Publishing Interns at 4:30 pm on Saturday. Join us for this packed weekend!

All events require registration; register at this link by choosing the events you’d like to attend! 

   

A Conversation with 2020 National Book Award Winner Charles Yu and Nominee Megha Majumdar with a Welcome from President Biddy Martin
Host: Thirii Myo Kyaw Myint
7– 8:00 p.m., Friday, February 26
Hosted in partnership with the National Book Foundation

    

A Conversation with 2020 National Book Award for Poetry Finalists Tommye Blount and Natalie Diaz
Host: John Hennessy, poetry editor of The Common
11– 12:00 p.m., Saturday, February 27
Hosted in partnership with the National Book Foundation

 

Alumni Authors Cocktail Hour Reading 
Host: Jennifer Acker
5 – 6:00 p.m., Saturday, January 27
Featuring Calvin Baker, Chris Bohjalian, Dan Chiasson, Edward A. Farmer, Michael Gorra, Kirun Kapur, Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne and Ismée Williams.

A Conversation with Pulitzer Prize Winner Anne Applebaum
Host: Cullen Murphy
1– 2:00 p.m., Sunday, February 28

LitFest 2021 Goes Virtual

Related Posts

headshot of journalist ed yong

Fatigue Can Shatter A Person

ED YONG
Alexis Misko’s health has improved enough that, once a month, she can leave her house for a few hours. First, she needs to build up her energy by lying in a dark room for the better part of two days, doing little more than listening to audiobooks. Then she needs a driver, a quiet destination.

Valeria Luiselli's headshot: brown woman in a blue jacket against a metal grate.

Excerpt from Tell Me How It Ends

VALERIA LUISELLI
“Why did you come to the United States?” That’s the first question on the intake questionnaire for unaccompanied child migrants. The questionnaire is used in the federal immigration court in New York City where  I started working as a volunteer interpreter in 2015.

Headshot of Catherine Newman

Excerpt from We All Want Impossible Things

CATHERINE NEWMAN
When the girls were little, they were confused about whether people believed that heaven existed in the sky—like, the earth’s sky. This was legitimately confusing, actually. “Is it heaven just for this planet or for the whole universe?” they’d wondered. “I guess the whole universe?”