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Grantee: Get Lit!

Project Title: Get Lit! Festival 2026
Year awarded: 2025, Round 3

EWU’s Get Lit! Festival began in 1998 as a one-day marathon of literary readings held at the Bing Crosby Theater. By 2004, the audience increased to thousands from Spokane and the surrounding region; the literary equivalent of Spokane’s nationally recognized events Hoopfest and Bloomsday. Over twenty years later, the Get Lit! Festival continues to be a community tradition across the Inland Northwest. Each year, Get Lit! partners with local organizations to present dozens of free and low-cost events. Leading up to the festival, EWU’s Writers in the Community program (now a part of Get Lit!’s programming) teaches creative writing classes in community spaces of need like shelters, recovery programs, schools, hospitals, and correctional facilities.

For nearly three decades, the festival has brought diverse and celebrated authors to Spokane to take part in events alongside our vibrant literary community. Being exposed to this work helps join important conversations about race, LGBTQIA+ issues, Islamophobia, climate change, body image, and feminism. By engaging in a variety of texts and conversations, community members of all ages and backgrounds can also be inspired to create their own art.

Get Lit! offers a range of ticketed and free events, and their author lineup consists of a diverse mix of local and national authors coming together to inspire our community and spark important conversations. This year’s festival will feature a variety of beloved local and regional writers. Funding from SAGA will help pay a modest honorarium to every single festival author who participates (50+).

Each of Get Lit!’s headliners will take part in a ticketed reading and Q&A, be part of panel discussions with local writers, and many will lead events on other college campuses in partnership with the festival. Headliners will also teach ticketed two-hour classes for local writers to improve their craft. This is a very special opportunity for our community, as literary enthusiasts would normally need to travel to a larger city like Seattle in order to attend an event of this kind.