Literary Cleveland’s Free Writing Conference
Inkubator
Sept 5–14 2025
The Inkubator is Literary Cleveland’s free annual festival for writers and readers. Generate new writing, improve your craft, and advance your career.
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Literary Cleveland's Inkubator Writing Conference is one of the largest free writing conferences in the country, providing workshops, craft talks, panel discussions, readings, and more to empower writers, celebrate literary excellence, and amplify diverse voices.
The Inkubator kicks off with three virtual panels September 8-10 followed by our in-person conference at the Cleveland Public Library September 11-13. Plus, we have a series of community projects to activate new locations and reach more people across the city.
This year’s conference theme, “Burn Bright,” is taken from the words of Celeste Ng. As she writes in her book Our Missing Hearts: “If the world is on fire you might as well burn bright.”
Note: Unfortunately, Celeste Ng had to cancel her appearance due to an unexpected emergency. We are grateful to author Katie Kitamura for stepping in as our new keynote on short notice!
With 45 events over seven days—all free—the conference is a regional celebration of writing that advances writers’ individual abilities, furthers artistic dialogue, fosters a more connected literary community, and invites more people to tell their stories.
September 8–10
Virtual Events
The Inkubator kicks off September 8-10 with three free virtual panels featuring Dr. Eve L. Ewing & Dr. Imani Perry on how history shapes us, Franny Choi & Danez Smith on how to go on after the unsurvivable, and Kiese Laymon & Deesha Philyaw on the courage to be vulnerable in writing.
September 11–13
In-Person Conference
Attend the free in-person conference at Cleveland Public Library with 40+ workshops and craft talks, panels with authors and agents, a book fair with regional literary presses and journals, an evening open mic, an afterparty, and more. Featured presenters include Dr. Taylor Byas, Nandi Comer, Jonathan Escoffery, Ashley C. Ford, Maris Kreizman, Tom McAllister, Allegra Solomon, and Ira Sukrungruang.
2025 Keynote Speaker
Katie Kitamura
Our planned keynote speaker, Celeste Ng, had to cancel her visit due to an unexpected emergency. Thankfully, author Katie Kitamura was able to step in as keynote on short notice. Katie Kitamura is the author of five novels including A Separation, Intimacies, and her most recent book, Audition, which was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was one of Barack Obama’s 2025 Summer Reads. In this keynote reading and moderated discussion, Kitamura will discuss her development as a writer, her most recent novel, and why in a time of crisis literature is more important than ever.
September 8–27
Cleveland Book Festival
The Inkubator is presented as part of Cleveland Book Fest September 8-27 in collaboration with the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, the Great Lakes African American Writers Conference (GLAAWC), Cleveland Public Library, Cuyahoga County Public Library, the City Club, Lake Erie Ink, and Writers in Residence.
2024 Conference
Workshops, craft talks, panel discussions, and more, across seven different genres.
FICTION
NONFICTION
POETRY
PUBLISHING
COMMUNITY
BEYOND
GENRE FICTION
Our 2024 conference was Inkubator’s tenth anniversary. We loved celebrating a whole decade of writing community.
