Registration is now open for Lit Youngstown's 9th annual Fall Literary Festival live in Youngstown, OH October 16-18, 2025. While we welcomed proposals on a variety of topics, this year's conference aims to sustain discussion on the environmental writing that shapes our experience and identity, and represents our rootedness in earth. We are thrilled you'll be joining us.
Important Dates:
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February 1-28 proposal submissions open
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mid-March proposal selections complete
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April 1 registration opens for attendees $65, presenters $45
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April 1 registration opens for bookfair table representatives
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April 30 registration deadline for presenters
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August 1 (or when sold out) registration closes for bookfair
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September 15 (or when sold out) general registration closes
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October 16 Gathering-In: Program walk-through, open mic
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October 17 All day concurrent sessions, evening reading
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October 18 All day concurrent sessions, evening reading
Early bird general admission is $65; after September 15, $95. New this year: walk-in registration.
Add-ons: Lunch $10, Dinner $15. New this year: while lunch has been included in previous years, we are now requesting your help to cover the cost.
New this year: Friday before-dinner VIP reception with the featured writers $50.
Presenters and book fair reps are asked to register at the reduced rate of $45. Why do we ask presenters to pay a registration fee? Our conference may be unusual in that the majority of our attendees are presenters, and as a small organization, we are simply unable to host the festival (our heaviest lift of the year) without that support. We hope presenters will find value in attending, beyond presenting. Registration is open for bookfair tables until August 1 or all tables are filled.
Registration fees:
Free: undergraduate and high school students; those requesting a hardship sponsorship; this year's planning committee members
$20: part-time faculty, graduate students
$45: presenters, bookfair table representatives (presses, journals, literary businesses, nonprofits or programs, not individual authors)
$65: general admission
$95: general admission after September 15
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We hope you find our high quality conference affordable. If you are experiencing economic hardship, we invite you to click "Request a sponsorship."
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If you can swing it, please consider sponsoring the festival with options below. You will be listed in the program as a sponsor, and we will be extremely grateful for your support in these uncertain times.
FEATURED PRESENTERS
Kortney Morrow is a poet and writer creating from her studio in Cleveland. Her work has received support from 68to05, The Academy of American Poets, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Prairie Schooner, Tin House, and Transition Magazine. Her debut poetry collection, Run It Back, was the winner of the 2024 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize, judged by Carmen Giménez. Kortney is represented by McKinnon Literary.
Todd Davis is the author of eight full-length collections of poetry—Ditch Memory: New & Selected Poems; Coffin Honey; Native Species; Winterkill; In the Kingdom of the Ditch; The Least of These; Some Heaven; and Ripe—as well as of a limited-edition chapbook, Household of Water, Moon, and Snow. He edited the nonfiction collection, Fast Break to Line Break: Poets on the Art of Basketball, and co-edited the anthologies A Literary Field Guide to Northern Appalachia and Making Poems: Forty Poems with Commentary by the Poets. His writing has won the Midwest Book Award, the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Prize, the Chautauqua Editors Prize, the Bloomsburg University Book Prize, and the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Silver and Bronze Awards. He is an emeritus fellow of the Black Earth Institute and professor of environmental studies at Pennsylvania State University.
Lauren Camp serves as New Mexico Poet Laureate. She is the author of eight poetry collections, most recently In Old Sky (Grand Canyon Conservancy, 2024), which grew out of her experience as Astronomer-in-Residence at Grand Canyon National Park. Camp has received fellowships from the Academy of American Poets and Black Earth Institute, as well as the Dorset Prize, a Glenna Luschei Award from Prairie Schooner, and finalist citations for the Arab American Book Award, Big Other Book Award and Adrienne Rich Award. Her poems have been translated into Mandarin, Turkish, Spanish, French, and Arabic.
David Huebert has won the CBC Short Story Prize, appeared several times in Best Canadian Stories, and was a finalist for the 2020 Journey Prize. His two short story collections, Peninsula Sinking and Chemical Valley, have won the Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize and the Dartmouth Book Award for fiction. His debut novel, Oil People, was published in August 2024 and has been called “lyrical,” “elegant,” and “wildly hallucinatory.” David teaches in the fiction MFA program at the University of King’s College in Kjipuktuk (Halifax), where he lives with his partner and two children.
Sean Prentiss is the author of a memoir, Finding Abbey: the Search for Edward Abbey and His Hidden Desert Grave, which won the National Outdoor Book Award. He is the author of two memoirs-in-poems, including Crosscut: Poems, and Majella: Poems from a Mountain Home. He is the co-author of two textbooks, Environmental and Nature Writing and Advanced Creative Nonfiction, and is the co-editor of The Science of Story: The Brain Behind Creative Nonfiction. He is a professor at Norwich University. He and his family live on a small lake in northern Vermont.
CONFERENCE FAQ
Q: How many people attend the Fall Literary Festival?
A: We are typically at our capacity of 300, coming in from Youngstown and coast to coast. Nearly half of attendees are presenters, leading to a rich, welcoming and engaging environment.
Q: Why are presenters asked to pay a registration fee?
A: We hope that presenters will also see themselves as attendees at a conference that has value for their own work. We want presenters to know we are exceedingly grateful for their intellectual, creative and scholarly contributions, and that their reduced registration fee makes it financially possible for the conference to happen in Youngstown, a resource poor community.
Q: Who is eligible for a bookfair table?
A: Representatives of literary businesses (bookstores, presses, journals, editing/marketing services), programs (academic, community-based) and organizations (clubs, nonprofits) are welcome to join 30 other tables at the bookfair. This year's bookfair will again take place at the beautiful McDonough Museum of Art. Lit Youngstown is pleased to sell books by presenters, but bookfair tables do not include individual authors.
Q: Is there a cost associated with having a table?
A: There is no table fee, but all table staffers are required to register at the presenter rate of $45.
Q: Does Lit Youngstown provide tables?
A: Yes, we provide tables (but not tablecloths).