CityLit Project, in partnership with Greedy Reads, presents A Premise Isn’t a Plot: Putting Momentum Into Any Manuscript - a Master Class with Courtney Maum, author of Before and After the Book Deal.
Join us at @greedyreads Remington on June 9 from 6:30 - 8:00 pm to learn how to transform your idea into a bestselling book!
Registration is required. Tickets are $10.
Register through the QR code or click the link in our bio.
Remembering my time at Baldwin for the Arts where I got to breathe in possibility in a landscape of green. Where I arrived with the burden of grief. Where I was received with the gift to release it. Forever grateful for my time there, and championing the creatives before and after me who get to experience exactly what it feels like to receive. The poetry and visit with my niece were the icing. @baldwinforthearts@jacqueline_woodson@_sincerelysadiya ✨Thank you for the memories, when I got to write, to create, and to play with words. ✨🙏🏾✨
📘✨ Thank you to Baltimore Magazine @baltmag for featuring this interview with our incredible Director, Carla Du Pree @darkndifferent who discussed the CityLit Festival, happening this Saturday!
📘✨ Thank you to BmoreArt Magazine @bmoreart for the feature with @michaelaangelad ! We’re in store for a great conversation between Michaela Angela Davis and @thebryreed Bry Reed - “Tenderheaded” - THIS Saturday at the CityLit Festival!
This year’s 23rd CityLit Festival ✨Bearing Witness: Literature as a Revolutionary Act✨explores the many ways reading and writing - the preservation of them - require intention. Featuring ✨Reyna Grande✨on the immigrant experience with new work, (Migrant Heart/Corazón Migrante), ✨Michaela angela Davis✨ (Tenderheaded), about Black identity in the world of glamour, ✨Adrian Matejka✨ (Be Easy) on memory, history, and hope, and Baltimore’s own ✨Lawrence Burney✨(No Sense in Wishing), the winner of the 2026 One Maryland One Book, the daylong event explores and examines the many ways we should treasure the very act of reading, writing, and memory, enriching our lives for a larger understanding. Our fight against erasure, whether it’s bearing witness to the present day or writing memory for personal or family archives.
In partnership with the ✨Maryland Center for History and Culture✨we offer a robust schedule with 21 sessions that include a Master Class ($10) with Randy Winston of ✨The Black List ✨- an absolute game-changing must for fiction writers, (link in bio), WYPR and The Weekly Reader Live, history and Fashionistas, a revelatory conversation and storytelling about women and reentry, The ‘State’ of Baltimore with Alanah Nichole Davis, announcing the 2026 Baker literary finalists, a 90-minute ‘craft’ intensive on why Hedgebrook, Center for Fiction, Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, Inner Loop, and the world of freelancing are worth your time. Learning experiences: writing ethics and creative control, ChatGPT workshop for writers (Bring your laptop!), alongside a disquieting discussion on the rising threat of AI to artists, a Fulton Bank session on how writers should manage the work and the money, how to create a Baker portfolio, ✨The Writer’s Room ✨with Reyna Grande (the immigrant experience) and Piper Huguley (historical fiction), and a vibrant Literary Marketplace. We welcome three stellar organizations: ✨Tribe 55+✨Charm Voices of Baltimore Youth (7th -12 grade- Yes, bring your young scribes!)✨ and ✨Making Her Mark Foundation.✨More soon.
Good morning #awp26! While you’re here this week, be sure to stop by the CityLit Project table. We are T1162, in the aisle by the entrance towards the coffee station in the back 😉
Meet our staff, board, and dedicated volunteers! Remember to grab a sticker and sign our guest book🥰
We are thrilled to welcome Michaela angela Davis to the 2026 CityLit Festival.
Michaela angela Davis is a writer, creative director, producer, and image activist focusing on the intersections of gender, race, fashion, culture, beauty, and identity. She was the fashion, beauty, and culture editor at Essence magazine, the founding fashion director at VIBE magazine, and the creator of NAACP Award-nominated docuseries The Hair Tales, which she co-executive produced alongside Oprah Winfrey and Tracee Ellis Ross.
In her memoir Tenderheaded, Davis provides both a celebration of Black media and a cultural manifesto that reckons with the role media and American history play in the shaping of a collective identity.
Join us on April 11th at the Maryland Center for History and Culture to hear Michaela angela Davis in conversation.
💜 Tag someone who needs to hear this voice 💜
Living is an art. With AWP right around the corner, and the 23rd CityLit Festival, too, my Black History Month is in full bloom. 💞Had a chance to finally meet the remarkable ✨Mary Helen Washington ✨to discuss her new book on Paule Marshall. I’ve been a fan since forever of her books Midnight Birds, Memory of Kin. 💞Join us for our Thursday, March 5th ✨Wintergreen Women Writers Collective✨reading with a few of my absolute FAVORITE Poets, and then for our epic AWP-Off-site Dance Party. ✨Hard Times Require Furious Dancing✨! And yes, I will be throwing down on the dance floor like nobody’s watching. Thanks to the wonderful Baltimore artist @yemonjapaints for her audacious “Bahama Mama,” and for the incredible literary organizations who made it happen. ‘Er now and then, Movement is required. No words. No restraints. The freedom to express your joy or rage in dance. Let’s go! ✨✨💞
Today’s the day! Tune in to “The Stories We Carry—Writing Remembrance, Radiance & Resilience” with authors Sharon G. Flake, Amber McBride, and Carole Boston Weatherford, moderated by Carla Du Pree. This FREE live event will be on YouTube TONIGHT at 7:00 p.m. ET.
@flakesharon@ambsmcbride@caroleweatherford@darkndifferent
Good People! Join us for a glimpse into the world of three Black esteemed authors for The Writer’s Desk - a special live event this Black History Month! “The Stories We Carry: Writing Remembrance, Radiance & Resilience” premieres on Thursday, February 19, 2026, with authors Sharon G. Flake, Amber McBride, and Carole Weatherford moderated by yours truly, a new AWP board member and the executive director of CityLit Project in Baltimore, Maryland.
We will discuss Black voices on the page, writing about frequently erased or misrepresented topics in the Black community, and the importance of sharing our stories, building our libraries, growing our archives. We hope you join us as we gather to talk books, writing, and all literary things.
This hour-long online event on YouTube is free. Starts at 7:00 p.m. ET with a Q&A at the end, if time permits. Check out the list of books by the authors on Bookshop.org. If you’re a fan of any of these award-winning authors, join us. Get a glimpse of why they deserve to be celebrated in this month where we raise our voices. @ambsmcbride@sharonflake@caroleweatherford
I remember when my young rebel self was introduced to this Lion, unbowed and unafraid. Thank you for that fierce cry, “I am Somebody,” when my young ears needed to hear it. Rest in Power, Rev Jesse Jackson. May the angels sing, Hallelujah. 💙🙏🏾🕊️
Thank you to the writers, readers, artists, musicians, volunteers, and partners who made 2025 with CityLit so special and so full. We are grateful to be part of a community that shows up and holds us steady as we keep moving forward.
