Local Festival Seeks to Give Writer's Block a Good Name

Louisville’s visual art lovers have St. James. Theatre fans have the Humana Festival. Poet Lynnell Edwards says there are already a few events tailored to bibliophiles, but there's always room on Louisville’s arts calendar for more.Edwards is the president of Louisville Literary Arts, a nonprofit that’s sponsoring the inaugural Writer's Block Festival. "We want to bring readers and writers together in Louisville to celebrate some of the terrific talent and diversity," she says."There are a lot of great things going on in different places in Louisville, kind of independent of one another, but this is an opportunity to really see what might happen when we start those conversations about the literary energy here."The Writer's Block Festival features workshops on writing in various genres, panel discussions and readings by various authors (including Will Lavender and John Burnam Schwartz) as well as a print fair where area authors and publishers will set up tables and offer books for sale."We have events that will appeal to the writer looking to improve her craft or to find out more about publishing," Edwards says, "and for readers looking for interesting and diverse titles and the range of publishing going on in our area."The Writer's Block festival starts Friday night with the InKy Reading Series at The Bard's Town Restaurant in the Highlands. Other festival events take place on Saturday in the Green Building and other venues throughout the NuLu section of East Market Street.