The pages are running out for 2023’s story, but we can still skim through some of the year’s highlights before beginning a new chapter in 2024. From book festival news to author interviews, it’s time to revisit the top moments in Baltimore’s literary world this year.
Book Festival Updates: With the Baltimore Book Festival still slated to return in 2024, a coalition of bookstores and community leaders put on the inaugural Waverly Book Festival in April. Ana Preger Hart, who has written for our own Baltimore Writer’s Club (here!) did a great photo-essay reviewing the festival for BmoreArt, shedding even more light on the local authors and neighborhood gems involved: the Enoch Pratt Library Waverly Branch, The Book Thing, Urban Reads, Normal’s, Red Emma’s, and Baltimore Read Aloud, and the local brewery, Peabody Heights.
Home Invasion Murder in L.A. Has Local Reverberations: People magazine reported on the November shooting of social justice activist Michael Latt by a woman who targeted him because he was friends with a woman she was stalking. The article mentioned Latt’s work with artists like Common and Ava DuVernay… but what they didn’t say is that Latt was working closely with Baltimore local hero D. Watkins to create a documentary about civil rights and basketball. “Mike was a rising star who will be missed,” says Watkins. “His company Lead with Love has blessed so many and will continue to do so. We will finish this film in his honor.”
CityLit Continues Keeping the City Lit: CityLit Project held its first fully in-person CityLit Festival at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall this past March, bringing authors like Hanif Abdurraquib, Megan Milks, Carmen Machado, Fatima Asghar, Joy Harjo, and Patricia Smith to town. Next year the festival will go hybrid to recapture the global audience, reports director Carla DuPree. Her other signature projects — the Write Like a Mother retreat, CityLit Studio digital storytelling showcase, and Cave Canem reunion readings — all had a banner year.
Acknowledging a Life Change: Careful readers of Laura Lippman’s latest psychological thriller and portrait of the city of Baltimore, Prom Mom, learned that one of the city’s leading power couples is no more, though the writers remain close friends. “I began this novel in January 2021,” Lippman tells the reader, “eleven months after the end of my marriage. It’s not that I recommend having a small personal crisis during a global pandemic, but it does have the advantage of keeping one on an even keel: Whenever I tired of feeling overwhelmed and sad about the one, I just switched to feeling overwhelmed and sad about the other. That said, my separation and divorce were about as amicable as such things can ever be and I managed to write this book, in part, because I enjoy enormous support from my co-parent, David Simon.” You never know what you’ll find in an Acknowledgments section—don’t skip ’em!
Literary Flacks Set Up Shop In Baltimore: The New York-based publicist Lauren Cerand moved to Baltimore in 2022 “because of the vibrant local literary and media scene,” and is currently beating the drum for Baltimore author Blake Butler’s brand-new grief memoir (Molly, Archway Editions) and JHU Seminars grad Nash Jenkins big fat Jenna-Bush-endorsed novel (Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos). She is also a vocal enthusiast of the Hidden Palace Reading Series at Faddensonnen, whose organizers Ashleigh Bryant Phillips and Joseph Grantham were just featured in BmoreArt.
Michael Tager, the founder of Mason Jar Press, is also now working in the fields of literary hype with his new venture, Lit Publicity. “Our clients are almost exclusively poets,” reports Tager, which certainly sounds to us like an unfilled need. Tager’s current client list includes, along with writers from all around the country, local poet Steven Leyva (The Understudy’s Handbook) and memoirist Danielle Ariano (The Requirement of Grief, coming in 2024.)
Ivy Hits A Homer: 1,050 fans of Ann Patchett and local author R. Eric Thomas signed up to attend a conversation between the two held at the Church of the Redeemer on Monday, Dec. 11 — and nearly all of them showed up. (Capacity at the church is 940 and this attendee saw no empty seats.) “It was pretty incredible to see that level of enthusiasm for any book event,” said The Ivy Bookshop owner Emma Snyder. She advises the Ivy is faithful that over the winter, all readings will be held at the Bird In Hand location in Charles Village; the Ivy patio will re-open next spring as weather permits.
Baltimore Writers Club Keeps Watering The Garden: To read more about Baltimore-adjacent books published in 2023, check out the Baltimore Writers Club archive, which features writers talking to writers about their new books. Among the highlights this year were Matt Norman’s Charm City Rocks, Jane Delury’s Hedge, Chris Grillo’s Hestia Strikes A Match, Mark Bowden’s Life Sentence, and Sujata Massey’s Mistress of Bhatia House. Poetry standouts: Rupert Wondolowski’s Dreams Are My Social Life and Pantea Amin Tofangchi’s Glazed With War.
While you’re here, consider revisiting our Top Literary News of 2021 and 2022.
