About 250 writers and book lovers attended the inaugural Writer's Block Festival held over the weekend in Louisville.
Centered in the NuLu District of East Market Street, the festival combined writing workshops with readings and panel discussions on the screenwriting, the publishing business and other subjects. Sessions with limited enrollment filled up or sold out and some open sessions that didn’t require registration were standing room only.
Lynnell Edwards is the president of Louisville Literary Arts, the nonprofit group that sponsored Writer's Block.
“The festival met every one of our highest expectations,” she says.
Organizers were pleased by the attendance, the diversity of the attendees (who appeared to range in age from college students to retirees) and by the level of interaction between the aspiring writers who came to the festival and the professional authors who served as instructors.
Bestselling authors John Burnham Schwartz, Will Lavender and Alanna Nash were among the presenters at the festival along with Louisville writers Kirby Gann and James Markert and Kentucky Poet Laureate Maureen Morehead.
Edwards says Writer's Block organizers will meet later this month to review feedback from participants, sponsors and authors and start making plans for next year’s festival.