The 27th annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival
Our next free event is a
FITZGERALD BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION
on October 3, 2023, 7 p.m. at the Writer’s Center, Bethesda
Devotedly, With Dearest Love
A Dramatic Reading Drawn from The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
by Lorrie Kyle and Directed by Leslie Kobylinski
Performed by The Rose Theatre Company
This year's Main Day Festival venue is Montgomery College Theater Arts Building
51 Mannakee Street, Rockville, MD 20850
You May Now REGISTER FOR 2023 FESTIVAL EVENTS
Festival Theme: "Mental Illness in Fiction."
2023 Honoree
Jonathan Franzen
Photo credit
2018(c)Shelby Graham
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Jonathan Franzen, author of four of the most acclaimed novels of recent decades - The Corrections (2001), Freedom (2010), Purity (2015), and Crossroads (2021) - and one of the most visible and intensely debated contemporary writers, will receive the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature at the 27th annual F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival on October 21, 2023. He will read from his work and discuss “The Art of Fiction” and the 2023 Festival’s theme, “Mental Illness in Fiction,” with award-winning fiction writer David Means.
Also on October 21, Ron Charles, of the Washington Post's "Book World," host of "The Book Report" on CBS-TV's Sunday Morning, and also host of "The Totally Hip Video Book Review," will give the Festival’s keynote talk, “A Life in Books”; leading local writers, including Ethelbert Miller, Margaret Talbot, Louis Bayard, and Tope Folarin, will lead Fiction and Non-Fiction Workshops; and local historian Eileen McGuckian will lead a tour of “Fitzgerald’s Haunts in Rockville."
Other 2023 Festival events will include a celebration of Fitzgerald’s birthday on October 3, a reading of a new play based on the letters exchanged between F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald; the presentation of the winners and runners-up in the annual Student Short Story and Adult Short Story Contests on October 12; and on Friday evening, October 20, a program of “Tributes to Jonathan Franzen,”featuring DAvid Means, Louis Bayard, and Marcela Valdes, with a response by Johnathon Franzen at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda. Full information for all of these events are available on this website.
2023
FESTIVAL OVERVIEW
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival was established in 1996 to celebrate the centenary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s birth, in Rockville, Maryland, the city where Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried. The Festival seeks to honor the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and those of prominent American literary artists and to support, encourage, and assist aspiring and emerging writers and students interested in the literary arts. Originally a one-day event, the Festival now includes programs on three or four days. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival is co-sponsored by the City of Rockville and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference, Inc.
2023
FESTIVAL OVERVIEW
CONTACT US
F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference, Inc.
Rockville City Hall
111 Maryland Avenue
Rockville, MD 20850
301-309-9461