Come join us as we celebrate the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards' 90th Anniversary! Click here to sign up for ticket alerts and exclusive AWBA updates.
All events are free to the public and registration is open! Click here to register for the events below.
Join us for a full day of thought-provoking conversation, literary celebration and community connection as we mark the 90thAnniversary of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards with a festival-style event spanning 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. The day begins at the Martin L. King, Jr. Branch of the Cleveland Public Library with an opening keynote and complimentary morning refreshments, followed by a series of rich conversations and readings featuring past AWBA winners and jurors—leading writers who have fundamentally shaped how we think about race relations and cultural diversity.
In the afternoon, the celebration moves into Ohio City for a walking-style series of events. Bookhouse Brewery will serve as the central hub for information, giveaways, and book sales. Park once and spend the afternoon attending in-community author events, all within easy walking distance. Local businesses will offer special discounts to festival attendees, making it easy to explore the neighborhood.
Whether you join us for the full day or just a portion, the event is designed to be open, accessible, and deeply engaging for anyone who wants to take part.
The 90th Anniversary Celebration
Cleveland Public Library - MLK Branch
10601 Euclid Ave. Cleveland, OH 44106
Register here
9:30 to 9:45 a.m.:
Opening and Challenging Minds Since 1935: How 90 Years of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards has Shaped How We Think About Race
Kick off the 90th Anniversary Celebration with opening remarks from our jury Chair Natasha Trethewey as she highlights the transformative impact the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards have had on our larger understanding of race, racism, and human diversity.
9:45 to 10:30 a.m.:
Humanity on the Line: Resisting Dehumanization, Erasure, and Atrocity Amidst Divides
Join Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winners George Makari and David Livingstone Smith for a compelling fireside chat exploring the forces that fracture our shared humanity. Drawing from history and contemporary events, they’ll examine how narratives of othering and exclusion have shaped some of the darkest chapters of our past—and how understanding these patterns can illuminate paths towards dignity and resistance in our present.
10:30 to 11:15 a.m.
Light in the Ruins: A Poetry Reading Featuring Past Anisfield-Wolf Book Award Winners
Join past Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winning poets—Adrian Matejka, Marilyn Chin, Ilya Kaminsky, Monica Youn, and Victoria Chang—as they read past and new works that speak to the resilience of the human spirit and the bridges we can build with language.
11:15 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Meet the Authors: Book Signings with Anisfield-Wolf Luminaries
Celebrate the voices behind the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards with a special book signing session featuring past award-winning authors. This book signing also includes the full AWBA jury—Natasha Trethewey, Peter Ho Davies, Charles King, Tiya Miles, Deesha Philyaw, and Luis Alberto Urrea—alongside additional past recipients of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards. Don’t miss this opportunity to connect with the writers and thinkers shaping our literary landscape. Mac’s Backs is the official book seller for this event.
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Events on Cleveland's Near West side
1:00 to 1:45 p.m.
Beyond Representation: Fiction that Moves, Challenges, and Illuminates the Complexity of Identity
Location: BOP STOP at The Music Settlement, 2920 Detroit Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113
Join us at Bop Stop, Cleveland’s beloved jazz club, for a vibrant conversation honoring Danzy Senna, winner of the 2025 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction, for her sharp, genre-bending collection Colored Television.
Senna will be joined by Deesha Philyaw, author of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and Anisfield-Wolf juror, for a conversation that explores how fiction—especially when laced with humor and narrative drive—can move us, challenge us, and reveal deeper truths about who we are. Together, they’ll reflect on the power of storytelling and the role of art in shaping how communities see themselves and are seen by others.
This is a conversation about storytelling that resists easy categorization, pushes back against commodification, and insists on complexity, truth, and agency.
Register here
2:00 to 2:45 p.m.
Drawn from Memory: The Role of Art in Shaping Identity
Location: Transformer Station, 1460 West 29th St. Cleveland, OH 44113
Join us at Transformer Station for a conversation about storytelling and artwith two groundbreaking creators: Maxine Hong Kingston, a foundational voice in American literature, and Tessa Hulls, artist and author of Feeding Ghosts, the first-ever graphic memoir to win an Anisfield-Wolf Book Award—and the inaugural winner in the memoir category.
Moderated by acclaimed writer Peter Ho Davies, this event explores how memory, family history, and cultural inheritance shape who we become—and how art helps us tell those stories.
Tessa Hulls’ original artwork will be projected onto the walls of Transformer Station, immersing the audience in the visual world of Feeding Ghosts and highlighting her identity as an artist first and foremost. Together, Hulls and Kingston will reflect on the creative process, the stories we inherit, and the ways we use art—both visual and literary—to shape identity and reclaim history.
Topics will include:
- The role of memory in shaping personal and cultural identity
- How art and writing help us process inherited stories
- The power of intergenerational storytelling
- The evolving landscape of memoir and Asian American expression
3:00 to 3:45 p.m.
Revival: A Slave Narrative Reawakened
Location: St. John’s Episcopal Church, 2600 Church Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113
Presented in Partnership with Karamu House
Hosted at the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church in Ohio City
Join us for a moving afternoon of performance and reflection as the Karamu House Ensemble breathes life into the 1855 slave narrative of John Swanson Jacobs—an extraordinary account nearly forgotten by history, but recently rediscovered by Jonathan D. S. Schroeder in his Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winning text, The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography.
Set upon the sacred site of the church hall at St. John's Episcopal Church, a location deeply tied to Cleveland’s Underground Railroad legacy, this event offers a rare opportunity to engage with the enduring power of Jacobs’ words.
Scholar Jonathan D. S. Schroeder will provide historical context and insight, helping audiences understand the significance of Jacobs’ life in the wake of enslavement. Whether you're new to this history or deeply engaged in 19th-Century African American Literature, this performance invites you to witness a revival of John Swanson Jacobs’ words as he denounces slavery, critiques America’s founding documents, and shares his own personal story of escape and resilience.
4:00 to 4:45 p.m.
Yard Show: Poetry of Belonging, Nature, and Black Creative Placemaking
Location: Ohio City Farm, 2304 Bridge Ave. Cleveland, OH 44113
Join us at Ohio City Farm for a poetry reading and cultural gathering with acclaimed writer Janice N. Harrington, celebrating her Anisfield-Wolf Book Award winning collection, Yard Show. Set amidst one of the nation’s largest urban farms, this event honors the Black midwestern tradition of the yard show—where everyday materials and personal memory transform outdoor spaces into vibrant, living art.
In Yard Show, Harrington reclaims the overlooked and the ordinary, illuminating how Black communities have long used their yards as sites of beauty, resistance, and storytelling. Her poems echo with the textures of reclaimed land, the rhythms of nature, and the deep-rooted creativity that flourishes in the margins.
Ohio City Farm, a reclaimed urban space dedicated to sustainable agriculture and community nourishment, offers a fitting landscape for this celebration of land, memory, and imagination.
The event will include:
- A reading and conversation with Janice N. Harrington
- Reflections on the cultural and ecological significance of front yard shows
- A guided walk through the farm’s cultivated grounds
The ideas expressed in City Club forums are those of the speakers, and not of the City Club, Ideastream Public Media, or their sponsors.