Lit Youngstown’s seventh annual Fall Literary Festival with offer about 50 sessions by nearly 150 presenters from throughout the United States.

This year’s featured presenters are poet and essayist Ross Gay, novelist and journalist Alison Stine and memoirist and essayist Jill Christman.

Gay, a Youngstown native, will read from his newest essay collection, “Inciting Joy,” an Ohioana Library Award winner, at 7 p.m. Oct. 20 at St. John’s Episcopal Church, 323 Wick Ave., Youngstown.

Gay is the author of four books of poetry and winner of the PEN American Literary Jean Stein Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.

Stine and Christman will read from their books, followed by a Q&A with Ohio novelist Jen Knox at 7 p.m. Oct. 21 at Culturati Studios, 350 E. Federal St., Youngstown.

The in-person conference will open Oct. 19 at the McDonough Museum of Art, 525 Wick Ave., Youngstown, with a performance by the #notwhite collective of Pittsburgh, a group of traveling visual artists and spoken-word performers.

The three evening programs are free, as is an interview with Gay by Michigan poet Jennifer Sperry Steinorth 1 p.m. Oct. 20 at the Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, 305 Wick Ave., Youngstown.

Daytime session on Oct. 20 and 21 in Bliss Hall theaters and classrooms at Youngstown State University will cover a wide range of topics in the literary arts, such as reading, writing, teaching, translating, understanding and publishing literary works. The book fair in the McDonough will feature two dozen small presses, journals, programs and booksellers.

According to Lit Youngstown Director Karen Schubert, “Each year, we see more and more Valley attendees. This festival is not just for writers. Know someone whose nose is always in a book? Send them our way.”

Programming on Oct. 21 for K through 12 language arts educators will give them an opportunity to share their strategies for developing engaged readers and writers in the classroom, for understanding science-based reading guidelines and other topics, such as AI and author visits.

Attending daytime sessions requires registering before Sept. 1. General registration costs $60 with discounts for students and part-time faculty and sponsorships for those in economic hardship.

This year’s festival is sponsored by the Centofanti Foundation, the YSU Center for Working-Class Studies, the Ruth Grace Memorial Endowment, WYSU-FM, Lake Erie Golf Carts, Sojourn to the Past, KO Consulting, Purple Cat, the Natalie & James Andrews Foundation, the Thomases Family Foundation, the Ohio Arts Council, the Community Foundation of the Mahoning Valley, the Youngstown Foundation, Barbara Brothers and Pamela Anderson.

To register or for more information, go to www.LitYoungstown.org.