ASHEVILLE, N.C. (828newsNOW) — Writers and readers alike are invited to the Punch Bucket Literary Festival, a weekend celebration that will bring writers, poets and essayists from all over the country to share their work with a series of panels and workshops.

Punching in for Punch Bucket: Where, when, what

The Punch Bucket Literary Festival is organized by Punch Bucket Lit, a board of literature-loving volunteers dedicated to organizing reading and writing outreach in the Asheville community.

The festival will begin at 7 p.m. tonight, Friday, Sept. 19, with a rapid reading session at The Grey Eagle, before the main series are held from 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m., Saturday, Sept. 20, at The Renaissance Hotel, 31 Woodfin St.

Tickets for the festival are $15 for Friday and $25 for Saturday, but in keeping with their mission statement of literature access for all, Punch Bucket will also offer sliding scale ticket prices, available by email inquiry at writers@punchbucketlit.org. Find tickets here.

The Punch Bucket lineup is made up of panels and workshops featuring more than 50 writers. There will be readings, where writers will read sections of their latest work for their audience in groupings by medium, such as “YA” or “Debut Poetry Collections,” as well as panel topics ranging from “Narrative Feminist Poetics” to “Ethics, Art, and Documenting Disaster,” where local journalists will share their experiences covering Hurricane Helene.

Most of the writers will appear on a volunteer basis. Anyone can apply to be part of the Punch Bucket festival, after which the Punch Bucket staff will narrow down the submissions, accounting for criteria like quality and variety.

“Usually, we’re all kind of on the same page, and if we’re not, then we’ll bring in like a a tiebreaker or somebody to help us, because we want to be fair. We want to make sure that we’re bringing in a lot of diverse, like, in artistry, diverse perspectives,” explained Punch Bucket Director Rachel M. Hanson. “Like, I love creative nonfiction and I love lyric fiction and I’m not a poet, right? So, maybe I’d want to choose a fiction writer over a poet. But maybe the poetry is better than the fiction, you know, that kind of thing.”

There will also be 12-15 “Featured Authors,” individually invited by the Punch Bucket staff, who will be present at the Grey Eagle rapid reading event and Saturday panels.

“The featured writers who I’ve invited, they get paid a small stipend, and they come, they read and it’s pretty fun. I love the rapid reading style. It’s a little more informal. People go back to back, they read for five, seven minutes and it’s just a lot of fun,” Hanson said. “When they read on Saturday, they’re gonna be reading for longer, right? Like 20 minutes. But, if you can’t make it to everybody’s reading, at least you got to go to the opening night, and hear a little bit about them, and maybe you go grab their book or something and spend more time with their work later.”

Hanson encourages anyone with a passion for writing and literature to come out to the event.

“It’s a great time to come hang out and and and be inspired by artists, poets, writers. They’re such an interesting group of folks and there’s just a diverse array of talent,” Hanson said. “Come immerse yourself in it, get inspired. I think we need that more than ever right now.”

For more information about Punch Bucket Lit or the Literary Festival, visit www.punchbucketlit.org.