Our Story
Lit Youngstown began as a conversation with a dozen community members around a table at Suzie’s Dogs & Drafts in January, 2015. Co-founders Karen and Liz Hill built a team that has engaged thousands of people through workshops, reading series, conferences, public art projects and community events. The Lit community continues to grow with nearly 2,000 e-newsletter subscribers, 3,200 followers on Facebook, 1,200 on Instagram and 250 on YouTube.
Our major programs include a monthly reading series featuring local and regional authors and an open mic; the Winter and Summer Writing Camps, multi-generational days of writing activities with teaching artists from the region; small group writing focused on healing and connection; and online and in-person workshops on many aspects of writing and publishing, taught by experienced writers.
We have partnered with many community organizations; beginning with the National Council of Negro Women Youngstown Chapter on an oral history project culminating in the book Phenomenal Women: Twelve Youngstown Stories, featuring Youngstown women between the ages of 64 and 101. In conjunction with literary-visual art project Words Made Visible, we stamped excerpts of poems into sidewalk squares on Walnut St. downtown. We partnered with the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County on an NEA Big Read grant, and coordinated dozens of events throughout the City relating to the novel Into the Beautiful North, including a visit from author Luis Alberto Urrea. With the Hopewell Theatre, we presented a staged performance of the poetry and prose of Walt Whitman. With the Youngstown State Arts Department and painting professor Dragana Crnjak, we participated in phase one of a 500' mural by soliciting community members for stories and memories of the downtown.
Lit Youngstown introduced more programming focused on youth in 2020, including writing with teens at Akron Children’s Hospital and hosting monthly teen writing workshops. During the Pandemic we adapted much of our programming to an online format, including the 2020 Fall Literary Festival. Additionally, we hosted New Book News readings for authors of books released during the pandemic. The archived readings have thousands of views on our YouTube channel. To help provide enrichment to area children, we purchased books for nearly 1000 kids enrolled in Alta Head Start and YSU Project Pass.
An Ohio Arts Council Arts Resiliency Grant Special Community Projects allowed us to host three artists-in-residency. Quartez Harris and Mike Geither of Cleveland and Manuel Iris of Cincinnati visited schools, led readings, talk and workshops, and were key participants in a Black history tour, theater stakeholders roundtable and Hispanic cultural celebration, respectively.
Our creative team continues to explore ways to serve and engage residents of the Mahoning Valley and readers and writers everywhere. In 2026, we moved to the Loop Youngstown Arts & Culture Center. With the Loop, we presented Reemergence, featuring a writing workshop and reading by Hannah Rodabaugh and Rebecca Evans, live music, and an art show by Loop resident artists. Our outreach program has invited those living with grief and illness, those who are 55+, veterans, teens and others into small group settings for a gentle exploration of our experience and others'.