LITFEST in the DENA returns this weekend, bringing approximately 150 authors and thousands of attendees to Pasadena Presbyterian Church with programming focused on literary character and community resilience following recent wildfires.
The free literary festival will take place Friday from 6 to 9:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at 585 E. Colorado Blvd. in Playhouse Village, with this year’s theme “Books That Teach Us About Character.”
“We decided to put integrity at the forefront of our event because it’s something that is on everyone’s mind,” said Natalie Lydick, Project Development at Light Bringer Project, the nonprofit arts organization presenting the festival.
The 2025 festival has moved from its previous venue at Mountain View Mausoleum to Pasadena Presbyterian Church due to ongoing fire recovery efforts in the region. The church, Pasadena’s first, was established in 1875 and celebrates its 150th anniversary this year.
Special programming will address impacts of the recent Eaton and Palisades wildfires, including Friday’s “Poetry as Memory and Collective Processing” panel featuring Lisa Lee Ching, Carla Sameth, Noriko Nakada, Emily Fernandez, and Romaine Washington. Saturday’s student showcase “Unsigned by Flames: Dena Students Unite” highlights student responses from the Pasadena Unified School District Think Tank. “Grief and Healing Through Music and Song” will include Russell Mace, Liane Tate (Monétique), Wayne Behrens, James Peterson, Gwendolyn Stanford, and Brad Colerick.
“The character of our community has been tested in the last few months,” Lydick noted. “People who love this event have proved to us over and over that one of the principal character traits of Dena, and Los Angeles more broadly, is strength.”
As reflected on the LITFEST website, Ursula K. LeGuin’s words capture the festival’s theme: “We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel… is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become.”
Other notable sessions include “Odd and Othered: Queer Speculative Stories,” “Creating Comics Characters That Jump Off the Page,” and “When Good People Write Bad People.”
“There is this wonderful reflexive relationship between people and literature — we shape the character of the written word and then literature shapes us in kind,” Lydick explained.
Festival amenities include a bookstore operated by Flintridge Bookstore, food trucks, tea samples from Tea Spectral, coffee from 77 Drip, author signings, and more. The full schedule is available at litfestinthedena.org/schedule.
“In our dream world, this event will not just inspire folks to continue reading and writing, but show them how important it is for our collective well being,” Lydick said.
For general programming inquiries, contact Lydick at (626) 228-4220 or litfestinthedena@gmail.com.
For volunteer inquiries, contact Patricia Hurley at patricia@lightbringerproject.
