2026 Festival

Save the Date!
15–18th September, on Yale’s Campus
Calendar Live in August

Past Years

2025

    1. Food Truck Welcome
      College Street Tent

    1. Windham-Campbell Prizes Ceremony and Keynote by Kwame Dawes
      Yale Center for British Art Auditorium

    1. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    2. Poetry, Faith, and Silence: A Conversation with Anthony V. Capildeo
      College Street Tent
    3. After Nations: A Conversation with Rana Dasgupta
      College Street Tent
    4. Sounding the Text: Patricia J. Williams and Kendall Thomas in Performance - CANCELED
      College Street Tent
    5. Janelle Monáe’s Afrofuturism
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Mezzanine (Audubon Side)
    6. Freedom Futures Block Party
      Possible Futures Bookstore
    7. The Art of Fiction
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Mezzanine (Audubon Side)
    8. Staged Readings of Works by Roy Williams and Matilda Feyiṣayọ Ibini
      Yale Center for British Art, Auditorium
    9. Screening: The Friend with Q&A
      Humanities Quadrangle L02

    1. For the Birds: A Walk with Anne Enright
      Registration is closed.
    2. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    3. Joseph Brodsky in the Archive
      Beinecke Library, Room 37-38
    4. The Art of Playwriting
      College Street Tent
    5. Critical Race Theory Now
      College Street Tent
    6. Soundscapes and Places
      College Street Tent
    7. 2 Tone Records Rock London
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Mezzanine (Audubon Side)
    8. Screening: We Have Just Begun with Live Narration and Soundtrack
      Humanities Quadrangle L02
    9. The Global Countryside: Podcasting the Most Important Story of the 21st Century
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Mezzanine (Audubon Side)
    10. Prize Recipients Reading
      Yale Center for British Art

2024

    1. Welcome Party
      College Street Tent

    1. Prize Ceremony and Keynote Lecture by Lydia Davis
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    2. Zong! 15th Anniversary Reading and Celebration
      College Street Tent
    3. Siblings in Art and Life
      Yale University Art Gallery, 3rd Floor
    4. Art of Fiction: Kathryn Scanlan and Elliott Holt
      College Street Tent
    5. Write with Me: Community Writing Session
      College Street Tent
    6. In Praise of Black Performance
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    7. The Poet's Memoir
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    8. Staged Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    2. Ordinary Notes
      College Street Tent
    3. Close Looking: Charles Sheeler's American Interior
      Yale University Art Gallery, 3rd Floor
    4. Art of Fiction: Deirdre Madden and Anthony Domestico
      College Street Tent
    5. Writing for Stage and Screen
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    6. Write with Me: Community Writing Session
      College Street Tent
    7. On Basketball and Ascension
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    8. (Sub)Aquatic Conversation
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    9. Prize Recipient Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall (enter at 201 York Street)

2023

    1. Welcome Party with DJ Shay, Yootây Singers, and Food Trucks
      College Street Tent

    1. Prize Ceremony and Windham-Campbell Lecture by Greil Marcus
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    2. Black Feminist Writing
      College Street Tent
    3. On Becoming a Reader/Writer
      College Street Tent
    4. White Malice: The CIA and the Covert Recolonization of Africa: A Conversation with Susan Williams
      College Street Tent
    5. Close Listening: Schoenberg, Opus 19
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    6. Creative Reading: The Conversation
      Humanities Quadrangle L02 (lower level), Lecture Hall
    7. Film Screening: Percival Everett: Through the Writer’s Mirror
      Humanities Quadrangle L02 (lower level), Lecture Hall
    8. The Golden Record Playlist
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    9. Staged Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Morning Wake Up with The Yale Review: Coffee, Treats, Giveaways, and Words!
      College Street Tent
    2. Irish Civil Rights in Song
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Room 38-39
    3. Native Concerns: A Conversation with dg nanouk okpik
      College Street Tent
    4. Bliss Montage: A Conversation with Ling Ma
      College Street Tent
    5. Close Listening: J Dilla
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    6. Film Screening: A United Kingdom
      Humanities Quadrangle L01 (lower level), Alice Cinema
    7. Red Summer: Percival Everett’s American Landscapes
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall
    8. You Print Yourself on My Heart: Audre Lorde in the Archive
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    9. Prize Recipient Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall (enter at 201 York Street)

2022

    1. Prize Ceremony and Lecture by Natasha Trethewey
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Daily Wake Up with Aleshea Harris
      College Street Tent
    2. Book Launch: The Book of Goose by Yiyun Li
      Asian American Cultural Center
    3. Outside the Comfort Zone, or the Playwright as Novelist
      College Street Tent
    4. This Mournable Body
      Yale Center for British Art, Lecture Hall
    5. Book Launch: England's Green by Zaffar Kunial
      Henry R. Luce Hall, Room 202
    6. Ask Your Mama: Sharon Bridgforth on Langston Hughes
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 38-29
    7. Theater as Ritual
      College Street Tent
    8. Choral Performance: Intimate Strangers
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Mezzanine
    9. Staged Readings: Works by Drama Prize Recipients
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

    1. Daily Wake Up with Ishion Hutchinson
      College Street Tent
    2. Children of Migrations
      Yale Center for British Art, Lecture Hall
    3. The Hauntologies of Slavery
      College Street Tent
    4. Zimbabwe in Fiction
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Room 38-39
    5. Close Looking: Richard Wright's African Photographs
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 38-39
    6. Oracles and Blessings: The Artist in Turbulent Times
      Stetson Branch, New Haven Free Public Library
    7. Music, Movies, & Dancing: One (More) Night in the Roof Nightclub
      The Gryphon

    1. Daily Wake Up with Jonah Mixon-Webster
      LOCATION CHANGE: BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
    2. Sources of Poetry
      Yale Center for British Art, Lecture Hall
    3. Who is the Critic?
      LOCATION CHANGE: BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
    4. Fiction and Its Discontents
      LOCATION CHANGE: BEINECKE RARE BOOK AND MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY
    5. Screening: In My Father’s Village
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 38-39
    6. Close Listening: Skokiaan by Louis Armstrong
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 38-39
    7. Close Looking: Turner Turned Inside Out
      Yale Center for British Art, Lecture Hall
    8. Tender Photo: African Photography in Real Time
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall
    9. Prize Recipient Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Lecture Hall

2019

    1. Prize Ceremony and Lecture by Eileen Myles
      Yale University Art Gallery (enter at 56 High Street or 201 York Street)

    1. Legal Fictions: On the Intersection of Law and Literature
      Whitney Humanities Center
    2. On Becoming a Reader
      New Haven Free Public Library (enter lower level on Temple Street)
    3. Close Looking: Ishion Hutchinson on William Blake
      Yale Center for British Art
    4. Poets of the World! The Story of the African Poetry Book Fund
      St. Anthony Hall
    5. Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
    6. Farthest Field: A Roundtable Discussion
      Henry R. Luce Hall
    7. On Becoming a Writer
      Afro-American Cultural Center
    8. Staged Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery (enter at 56 High Street or 201 York Street)
    9. Dance Party with DJ Ishion Hutchinson
      Afro-American Cultural Center

    1. Endeavors: What is a Black Play?
      Department of African American Studies
    2. Approaching Police Violence: A Writers’ Conversation
      New Haven Free Public Library (enter lower level on Temple Street)
    3. Close Looking: Danielle McLaughlin on Memorial for Henry G. Staats
      Yale University Art Gallery
    4. I Saw Your Face: A Conversation on Tom Feelings
      Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library (lower level)
    5. Writing After the Crash of the Celtic Tiger
      Whitney Humanities Center
    6. Remapping America with Rebecca Solnit
      St. Anthony Hall
    7. Who’s Afraid to Write about Class? A Playwrights’ Conversation
      Yale Cabaret
    8. Close Listening: Bob Marley’s Survival
      Afro-American Cultural Center
    9. Prize Recipient Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery

2018

    1. Prize Ceremony and Lecture by Elizabeth Alexander
      Sprague Hall

    1. At the Existentialist Café
      The Graduate and Professional School Club at Yale (GPSCY)
    2. Epic Transformations
      New Haven Free Public Library
    3. Close Looking: Olivia Laing on David Wojnarowicz
      Yale University Art Gallery
    4. Pope's Montaigne: A Conversation with Sarah Bakewell
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Room 38
    5. Art of Playwriting
      Yale Cabaret
    6. The Scandal of Translation
      Whitney Humanities Center, Room 108
    7. Anticipating an Audience for African Writing
      Whitney Humanities Center, Room 208
    8. On Becoming a Writer
      Afro-American Cultural Center
    9. Prize Recipient Readings
      Yale University Art Gallery, Auditorium

    1. Endeavors: Delusions of Whiteness in the Avant-Garde
      Department of African American Studies, Room 101
    2. Memories, Secrets, and Lies: Writing on Family
      New Haven Free Public Library
    3. Close Looking: Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi on William Etty
      Yale Center for British Art
    4. An Imagined Encounter: Langston Hughes and Xavier Villaurrutia
      Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Rm 38
    5. Close Looking: Lorna Goodison on Jacob Lawrence
      Yale University Art Gallery, Print Room
    6. Portraying Artists
      Whitney Humanities Center, Room 208
    7. Writing Songs with Suzan-Lori Parks
      Afro-American Cultural Center
    8. Staged Readings: Works by Drama Prize Recipients
      Yale University Art Gallery, Auditorium