Community Invited to LitFest Keynote Feb. 22

The entire community is invited to the Highland Park Literary Festival’s free keynote address at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22, at HPHS. The next day, students will learn about language in all its written, spoken, and visual forms from experts in the field during LitFest’s workshop day at the high school.

This year’s keynote speaker is award-winning author Kristin Harmel, whose works have been translated into more than 30 languages and sold worldwide. 

“(The keynote is) a night to bring the community together for a fun event that also spreads our love of the written word,” explained LitFest co-chair Renne Lokey.

The more than 25 workshops offered on Friday, Feb. 23, during HPHS students’ English classes feature topics such as Why We Love Murder Stories; Introduction to Songwriting; Visual Storytelling for Film and Television; and even How Far I’ll Go: What Disney Princesses Can Teach Us About Storytelling.

This year’s workshop presenters include inaugural Dallas Poet Laureate Joaquín Zihuatanejo, Grammy-nominated co-founder of Jackopierce Cary Pierce, Kael Alford, who photographed the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the US invasion of Iraq, and other experts in forms of visual, spoken and written media, from an editorial cartoonist and journalist to an actor and screenwriter.

“We hope the students learn about the variety of options available in writing,” Lokey said. “Writing isn’t just papers and books, but songs and poems and even jingles on TV.  What they learn in high school about developing an outline or paper can and will be applied later in life whether it’s a career in writing, as a lawyer, consulting or wherever they land.”

LitFest began in 1995 through a collaboration between parents and the Highland Park High School English Department and is now in its 29th year. Click HERE to learn more about the celebration and its events.