by Hayley Haugen

When I lived in Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Diego, I was spoiled. If I wanted to go to a literary event, I could do so whenever I wanted. It's not an exaggeration to say that one can still find a respectable author giving a reading of his or her work any night of the week. If my poet friends and I didn't feel like listening to others read, we would arrange our own readings at local coffee houses. It was a small circuit of venues, but we were well-known within them.

What an inspiring time it was to be a young writer meeting ones literary heroes: Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Lucille Clifton, Tom Robbins, Quincy Troope, Galway Kinnell, the list goes on. I realize now -- living in Northeastern KY and teaching in Southeastern OH -- that all along I had taken those literary events for granted. I was a perpetual English major. I figured that was what English majors did with their free time.

Sadly, my students and I do not have the same opportunities for constant literary inspiration that I had when I was their age. Of course there is YouTube, where one can dig up contemporary authors reading their work by the barrel full, but if you've ever gone to a live reading by an author you admire, then you know it's just not the same.

This is why I am so thankful for the Spring Literary Festival that takes place in Athens, Ohio each year. This year, we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the festival, and I will be accompanying ten students to the event. We will attend 12 hours of lectures and readings over a three day period, not for course credit, or brownie points, but for the sheer love of literature, for the chance to return to our own literary pursuits a little more inspired.

I have invited these students to blog about their experiences while at the festival. I hope that their responses will inspire  readers who can not make it to Athens next week to attend the festival next year.

http://www.english.ohiou.edu/cw/litfest/