Free Tulsa LitFest 2025 sets up four days of local creative excellence

Monday, April 21, 2025

Media Contact: Aaron Campbell | OSU-Tulsa Communications Coordinator | 918-594-8046 | aaron.ross.campbell@okstate.edu

Tulsa LitFest 2025, a celebration of local literature, film and creativity, will take over venues across Tulsa on April 24-27 with over two dozen free events that celebrate, create and engage with high-quality local art.

“LitFest brings local readers and local writers together,” said Dr. Eric Howerton, director of the Center for Poets and Writers at Oklahoma State University-Tulsa. “We want to create a space where readers, authors, film buffs, artists, and creatives of all kinds can engage with each other and with prominent visiting artists whose work is relevant to the community.”

The event lineup for Tulsa LitFest 2025 features live readings, performances, competitions, craft talks, workshops, film screenings, a book fair, and more.

The keynote speaker for this year’s LitFest is poet, author and lawyer Reginald Dwayne Betts. Betts is the founder and director of Freedom Reads, a nonprofit that has created nearly 500 libraries in adult and youth prisons and shipped over 200,000 books to incarcerated readers. During LitFest, he will perform his one-man show “March Forth: An American Washi Tale” on Friday night in the OSU-Tulsa Auditorium.

On Saturday at OSU-Tulsa, Betts will host a craft talk titled “Writing Under Constraints.” He will also host a Sunday morning coffee talk alongside filmmaker Yoruba Richen Fulton Street Books & Coffee, discussing art’s role as activism, and using art to effect change.

Other authors, artists and organizations hosting events at LitFest include OK Today Magazine, Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits, Tulsa Artist Fellowship, Nimrod Journal, filmmaker Yoruba Richen, poet Joshua Gottlieb-Miller, and novelists Lauren Smith and Alex Temblador.

“It is truly an honor to promote each of these storytellers. Their contributions showcase the inspiriting, entertaining, and transformative works being made all around us,” Howerton said. “We’re excited to come together and celebrate our wonderful creative community, and we invite everyone to share in the experience.”

LitFest is sponsored by the Center for Poets and Writers at OSU-Tulsa, Tri City Collective and Fulton Street Books & Coffee.

Visit tulsalitfest.org for a full schedule of events, plus a list of participating authors, artists and organizations.