ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — It’s a bookworm’s paradise! More than 100 authors will soon descend upon downtown Asheville for the inaugural Punch Bucket Literary Festival, Sept. 20-21.

What started as a monthly reading series in West Asheville later evolved into the literary nonprofit organization, Punch Bucket Lit, according to the organization’s Officer and Outreach Director Alex McWalters. The nonprofit was founded in April 2022 by Rachel M. Hanson, an assistant professor of creative writing at UNC Asheville. The nonprofit started its formulation process in January 2022 and hosted its first reading in March 2022.

The September festival is being held at The Wortham Center for Performing Arts and The Renaissance Hotel and will feature, among its many prestigious authors, New York Times bestselling and three-time National Book Award-nominated author, Lauren Groff. There will also be readings, workshops, and panels that cover multiple genres and forms, including memoir, fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

An all-day bookfair will host 20+ literary magazines and presses including The Sun Magazine, Ecotone, The Rumpus, and Loblolly Press.

“The festival is committed to fostering a diverse national perspective while building up and giving back to the local community on which it is built,” Punch Bucket Lit founder Hanson said in a news release.

The festival kicks off Friday night, Sept. 20 with a “rapid reading” at the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts that will feature a succession of five-minute prose and poetry performances by renowned authors Leah Hampton, Halle Hill, Bryn Chancellor, Ye Chun, and poets, Jessica Jacobs, Meg Day, Melissa Crowe, Evelyn Berry and many more. Saturday, Sept. 21, will feature prose and poetry readings, literary panels and workshops from 8:30 a.m. – 5:15 p.m. in both the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts and The Renaissance Hotel. The bookfair will run from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., also held in the Wortham Center for the Performing Arts.

Programming includes panels such as “Thinking with the Climate Crisis,” “DIY Writing Careers,” and workshops such as “Putting the Flash in Flash Fiction,” “Intimacy with Strangeness,” “Queerness and the Spirit: Writing Memoir,” “Writing Intergenerational Trauma,” “Dreams and the Work of Poetry” and more.

Outreach Director McWalters tells 828newsNOW that outside of this festival and their monthly readings, Punch Bucket Lit also produces a podcast called PBL Pod and in partnership with the United Way, they facilitate poetry outreach programming at Erwin Middle School.

McWalters says the festival grew from their monthly reading series and a vision to support and provide a platform for local writers.

“Punch Bucket’s vision has always been to support local writers while also working to provide a platform for regional and national writers interested in sharing their work with the Asheville-area community,” McWalters wrote in an email to 828newsNOW. “With the exception of our periodic rapid readings, Punch Bucket’s reading series format is designed to give two writers (ideally one local and one visiting) twenty minutes each to read their work and, if available, to sell their books. The reading series has also always been an avenue for writers and all people with literary interests to gather, to make connections, foster friendships, and build community. The reading series has always been free to attend, so it’s a space open to all. I think a festival was on the radar from the start, and over time, as the series grew, we felt it was time to try to provide the literary community an opportunity to convene and to commune, to create a platform for the exchange of ideas and the showcasing of some incredible literary talent, and a chance for the wider community to partake as well.”

CLICK HERE for more information on Punch Bucket Lit and the upcoming festival.

• Who: Punch Bucket Literary Festival Asheville
• When: Friday–Saturday, Sept. 20-21 // Friday event 7 p.m., Saturday events 8:30 a.m. to 9 p.m.
• Where: Wortham Center for the Performing Arts and The Renaissance Hotel
• Tickets: Full festival pass = $89 // Single events = $30 – $49
• Info/Tickets: worthamarts.org • Call (828) 257-4530 • Email boxoffice@worthamarts.org