Taking literature to the streets!
The Lit Crawl was created by San Francisco’s Litquake Literary Festival in 2004, and the idea was simple: let’s transform a bar crawl into a fast-paced mob scene of literary mayhem. Could we take over a neighborhood, add pop-up events to every conceivable venue (bars, cafes, bookstores, galleries, clothing boutiques, furniture showrooms, parking lots, Laundromats, bowling alleys, barbershops, bee-keeping supply shops, parks, police stations, and more), invite dozens of writers to read from their work, and watch hundreds of literati tromp the route and get drunk on words — all for free?
Not only was the concept wildly popular, it has become one of the most anticipated literary nights of the year. San Francisco’s closing night Lit Crawl now attracts close to 10,000 people, and is the world’s largest such event. In 2008 Lit Crawl NYC launched in Manhattan, also an immediate hit. Austin was next, swarming for the first time in 2011. In 2012, we birthed two more Lit Crawls, one in Brooklyn, another in Seattle. In 2013, we expanded to Los Angeles, Iowa City, and our first international Lit Crawl in London. This year, we’re attacking the balmy streets of Miami. What city will be next?
