Indie Lit Festival
24-26 September 2026
Frostburg State University Center for Literary Arts, the Allegany County Library System, the Lewis J. Ort Library, Savage Mountain Punk Arts, Frostburg Parks & Rec, and Mountain City Traditional Arts will host the 20th annual Western Maryland Independent Literature Festival (Indie Lit).
This event celebrates the writers, publishers, and readers of small press and independent publishing. If you read and/or write, this event is for you!
Participants and presenters are joining us from places far afield. Come along, too!
Tuesday 9/22:
Indie Lit Pre-game Reading and Concert by Thomas Dollbaum, Clatter, 7 PM
Chip Midnight of The Big Takeover writes, "Thomas Dollbaum’s songs are intimate while carrying weight, drawing comparisons to artists like Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Damien Jurado, Richard Buckner, and Arthur Russell. A poet with an MFA from the University of New Orleans, Dollbaum brings the same careful attention to language into his music – quiet, understated, but deeply affecting.”
Thursday 9/24:
Poetry Slam at Clatter (15 S. Broadway), 7 PM. This event is sponsored by Savage Mountain Punk Arts
$2 Suggested donation at the door. All funds are awarded to poetry slam winners.
Bring 3 Poems to read. Time limit 3 minutes per poem. Sign up at the door day of the event.
Friday 9/25:
Indie Lit Kickoff Reading featuring Stephen Haven, Clatter, 7 PM
Stephen Haven’s The Flight from Meaning (Slant Books, 2025) was a finalist for the International Beverly Prize for Literature. He has three earlier poetry collections: The Last Sacred Place in North America, selected by T.R. Hummer as winner of the New American Poetry Prize; Dust and Bread, winner of the Ohio Poet of the Year award; and The Long Silence of the Mohawk Carpet Smokestacks, runner-up for the Philip Levine Prize for Poetry in the last year Levine served as judge. Together with Wang Shouyi, Li Yongyi, and Jin Zhong, he published the 300-page, dual language (Mandarin and English) anthology of collaborative translations, Trees Grow Lively on Snowy Fields: Poems from Contemporary China (Twelve Winters Press, 2021). His memoir about childhood in New York's industrial Mohawk Valley, The River Lock: One Boy’s Life Along the Mohawk, was published by Syracuse University Press in 2008.
Saturday 9/26:
Readings, Workshops, and Panels in City Place (14 S. Water St), Mountain City Traditional Arts (25 E. Main St.) and the Frostburg Public Library (65 E. Main St.), 11-5
Small + Indie Press / Writer + Artist Book Fair,
City Place, 14 S. Water St., Saturday 11-5
Open Mic Hosted by Chuck Joy at Clatter, 6 PM-?
Indie Lit Concert: The Downstrokes with Subtastics at Main Street Pub, 8 PM
Friday's reading and all of the Saturday events are free and open to the public.
THANK YOU! Last year’s fest was been made possible by the generosity of Gerry LaFemina, Mercedes LaFemina, SMPA, Mary Wolodkin, Kalan McCann, Jonathan Felton and the folk at Clatter, Jennifer Porter and the booksellers at Main Street Books, Renee Warnick Mason, Caitlin Molter and the Allegany County Library System, The Lewis J. Ort Library, Kara Rogers-Thomas and Mountain City Traditional Arts, Brian Vought, Frostburg Parks & Rec., the Allegany Arts Council, the City of Frostburg, the Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences, and the FSU Department of Communication and Literature
Keep an eye out for updates and spotlights on folk who will be with us in our Facebook group and on other social media.
