OUTWRITE 2023
OutWrite, part of DC Center Arts, is Washington, D.C.’s annual LGBTQ+ literary festival. Events were free and open to the public.
The 2023 festival will took place August 11-13th! See the full schedule of events here.
Make sure to check out this year’s OutWrite presenters!
OutWrite is made possible thanks to support from our sponsors, AHF (AIDS Healthcare Foundation) and GILEAD, and grants from HumanitiesDC, National Book Foundation’s Literary Arts Emergency Fund, and Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association’s SFWA Givers Fund. You can still listen and watch Outwrite through Youtube below.
View All of the 2023 OutWrite on YouTube!
PREVIOUS FESTIVALS
Learn more about previous OutWrite festivals and former OutWrite leadership.
OUTWRITE JOURNALS
OutWrite publishes an annual journal around the festival. Our 2023 journal, themed “Levity”, will be published soon!
Read our 2022 journal below:
[View pdf: Pandemic as Portal]
Read our 2021 journals below:
[View PDF: We Got This-Black Writers on Imagination, Joy and Liberation]
Watch the journal reading below:
[View PDF: Celebrating Ten Years of OutWrite]
Watch the journal reading below:
OUTWRITE CHAPBOOK COMPETITION
OutWrite holds an annual chapbook competition, in partnership with D.C.-based small press Neon Hemlock Press. The winning chapbooks from our 4th Chapbook Competition can be pre-ordered now and will be published by Neon Hemlock Press in December.
Fiction: The End, as Seen from the Tip of the Indian Peninsula by M.L. Krishnan
judged by Brent Lambert
Nonfiction: A Study in Our Selves by Max Pasakorn
judged by Joseph Osmundson
Poetry: Shakespeares in the Ghetto by Kanyinsola Olorunnisola
judged by Saida Agostini
View the winners of our previous chapbook competitions.
FOLLOW OUTWRITE ON SOCIAL
OUTWRITE LEADERSHIP
OutWrite 2023 is Chaired by local poet Emily Holland.
Emily Holland (they/she) is a genderqueer lesbian writer. They received their MFA from American University, where she won the Myra Sklarew Award for outstanding thesis and was the Editor-In-Chief of FOLIO. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in publications including Shenandoah, Black Warrior Review, Nat. Brut, DIALOGIST, Homology Lit, and Wussy. Her chapbook Lineage was published by dancing girl press in 2019. Their work has been supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and Sundress Academy for the Arts. Currently, she is the Editor of Poet Lore, America’s oldest poetry magazine published by The Writer’s Center and a Professorial Lecturer in English at GWU.
The OutWrite 2023 Festival Journal is edited by Sylvia Jones.
Sylvia Jones lives in Baltimore, MD with her partner, Agata, a translator and aspiring phenologist, and their cat, Theo. She recently served as the 2021-22 Stadler Fellow in literary editing and is currently a reader for the journal Ploughshares. She keeps the bills partially paid, working as an editor at Black Lawrence Press and by lecturing part-time as an adjunct at Goucher College and George Washington University. Her most recent writing appears in: Smartish Pace, Sprung Formal,Revolute, DIAGRAM, the Hopkins Review, Poet Lore, Spilt Milk by the Poetry Society of New York, Shenandoah, and The Cortland Review.
View former OutWrite leadership.
BECOME A VOLUNTEER
OutWrite is only possible with the dedication and support of our Chairs, Planning Committee, and a team of festival volunteers. Email outwritedc@gmail.com if you’d like to volunteer with our festival.
EXHIBITING
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual exhibiting is limited at this time.
OutWrite Posts
Upcoming Outwrite Events
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom (ACE by Angela Chen)
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom
Queer Book Club – Via Zoom