Words Aloud 2024
Artistic Director’s Message
A Few Changes, and a Special Event in Conjunction with the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film.
Hello friends and fans of live poetry! After our wildly successful 2023 events, Words Aloud would like to announce an important change. While our mandate, vision, and top-flight programming will all stay the same, we have decided to move to a biennial model – that is, we will present the festival every other year, starting in 2025. This will allow us to better allocate decreasing resources and maximize our ability to punch above our weight as one of the best literary festivals around.
The biennial model also allows for a range of satellite events held in the interstices between festivals. To this end, in conjunction with the Durham Art Gallery and the Fabulous Festival of Fringe Film (held in Durham and Hanover between July 11 and July 18), we are presenting three outstanding poets for a day of verse on Saturday, July 20, between 2 pm and 4 pm: Rocco de Giacomo, John O'Neill, and Tanis MacDonald. Our emcee will be Owen Sound Poet Laureate for 2024-25 Rebecca Diem. For information about the poets please visit the Artists page. More details on this free event can be found here.
We invite you all to our events, and be sure to check here as information is liable to change.
All the best, and have a great summer!
Richard-Yves Sitoski