About Us​

The annual Cleveland Drafts Literary Festival is a showcase of the writers, publishers, performers, organizations, and institutions that are shaping our unique and vibrant literary community.  We pair local business with local literary stars to engage in “creative place-making,” presenting audiences with a brand new lineup of local authors reading from “works in progress” across a new featured neighborhood. Festival goers will listen to performances by new, emerging and critically acclaimed writers.

 

Produced in partnership with local literary arts organizations, university programs, bookstores, small businesses, and reading series, Drafts aims to celebrate Northeast Ohio’s diverse culture and foster community across the region. In addition to our flagship literary festival, we host collaborative gatherings with our literary partners, and engage in outreach at area festivals and conferences. 

 

Our Mission​

Works in progress. Writers in progress. Community in progress.

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The mission of the Cleveland Drafts Festival is to engage in "creative place-making" by connecting writers and audience members with local resources, by fostering dialogue, and by spotlighting NE Ohio as a rich literary region. Each year our festival is planned in collaboration with nine local literary organizations. 

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Our goals: 

• To connect area literary organizations and foster further collaboration

• To highlight the writing process by focusing on "works in progress"

• To support writers across genres and at a variety of career stages

• To feature NE Ohio as a hotbed of literary resources and writerly talent

• To spotlight local neighborhoods and support local business

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Why "Drafts”? As working writers, we at Cleveland Drafts know that the opportunity to perform new work is also an occasion to develop writing that has been living in a drawer, or to write something entirely new. By highlighting works-in-progress (writing that has not yet been published), we encourage the continued creation and development of literary works from voices in our area who face a variety challenges at each new career stage.