By Erin Wood
Did you know that the Arkansas Literary Festival has a new name?
The beloved festival—which has grown in content, quality, and popularity—will now be known as the Six Bridges Book Festival. The new name reflects the six bridges connecting the downtown areas of Little Rock and North Little Rock as well as the new focus of bridging communities and bringing people together. With the goal of offering a festival that has wide appeal, The Central Arkansas Library System (CALS) is soliciting feedback from varied demographic groups.
Nate Coulter, CALS Executive Director, shares, “Our goal in renaming the library’s book festival is to draw a wider audience by removing any barriers created by the perception that this event is only for highbrow tastes. We want The Six Bridges Book Festival to be a diverse, energetic celebration of all kinds of stories and topics, both literary and mainstream, and feel the new name will more accurately reflect the festival’s opportunities for readers.”
The 17th annual festival will take place April 23–26, 2020 and will feature author Tim O’Brien (The Things They Carried) as part of the NEA Big Read: CALS.
For more information about the Six Bridges Book Festival, please contact Brad Mooy at bmooy@cals.org or 501-918-3098, or visit sixbridgesbookfestival.org.
A Hot Springs native, Erin Wood is a writer, editor, and publisher in Little Rock. She owns and runs Et Alia Press (etaliapress.com). Wood is author of Women Make Arkansas: Conversations With 50 Creatives (April, 2019) and editor of and a contributor to Scars: An Anthology (2015).
