LitFest Pasadena, the city and Southland's free books-and-authors festival, returns to celebrate its fifth anniversary with a grand day of events and readings the afternoon and evening of June 4, 2016.

Kicking off in the courtyard of famed Vroman's Bookstore with a big writer and a new book - still-secret details to come - LitFest continues on the sidewalks and storefronts of Pasadena's highly walkable Playhouse District through the day, including at the city's iconic Pasadena Playhouse.

- Adding to our legacy offeaturing Pulitzer Prize winners, San Francisco novelist Robert Lowe, a Pasadena native, will read from his latest mystery.

- The first-annual Pasadena Lifetime in Literature Award will be presented.

- The Library Foundation of Los Angeles will roll up in its Library Store on Wheels.

- The fourth-annual Pasadena Prize in Prose will be awarded to the author of the best short story by a high school student.

- Prominent California African-American authors will discuss writing in the time of Black Lives Matter with Altadena novelist and LitFest co-founder Jervey Tervalon.

- Poetry, YA, true crime and literary fiction writers will share their recent work.

At our fifth anniversary, we will also celebrate the great authors of past years - including Pulitzer winners Jonathan Gold, Megan Marshall and Daniel Walker Howe - as well as novelists Mona Simpson, Michelle Huneven and Naomi Hirahara, poets Wanda Coleman and Brendan Constantine, poet and YA author Ron Koertge, scholar and Libros Schmibros proprietor David Kipen,  L.A. mystery writer Denise Hamilton, Lalo Alcaraz, creator of the daily comic strip "La Cucaracha," Kogi truck creator and author Roy Choi and memoirist Jillian Lauren, author of "Some Girls: My Life in a Harem."

For more information on participating as a sponsor, event creator or volunteer, write: litfestpasadena@gmail.com 

or call Larry Wilson, co-founder of LitFest Pasadena at 626-429-1739.

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Twitter: @LitFestPasadena