The National Endowment for the Arts promises an exciting lineup of presenters, panels, and events at the Library of Congress’s fifteenth annual literary festival, an event that promises to feature more than 150 authors, poets, and illustrators.

On Saturday, September 5, from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, NEA’s Poetry & Prose Pavilion will feature presenters Daniel Alarcón (At Night We Walk in Circles), Jerome Charyn (I Am Abraham), Marilyn Chin (Hard Love Province), Claudia Rankine (Citizen: An American Lyric), Ishmael Reed (The Complete Mohammad Ali), Eric Pankey (Crow-Work), and Kevin Young (Book of Hours).

The Poetry & Prose Pavilion will also offer two panel discussions, including “Publishing in the Digital Age: A Panel About the Ins and Outs of Publishing” (featuring author Lynn Freed; Geoffrey Kloske, vice president and publisher of Riverhead Books; and Kevin Larimer, editor in chief of Poets & Writers) and “Why Literature Matters: A Conversation About the Importance of the Imagination” (featuring Jane Hirshfield, Azar Nafisi, and Jeffrey Brown).

In the morning on Saturday, young poets will recite poetry to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Poetry Out Loud, a national poetry recitation contest for high school students.

In the evening, the NEA, the Library of Congress Poetry and Literature Center, and Split This Rock will present the National Book Festival Youth Poetry Slam, which will feature poets from Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC.

Learn more about the schedule of events on the Library of Congress’s website.

Image credit: http://loc.gov/bookfest