A Festival of Writers—featuring the award-winning Roxane Gay, Jericho Brown and Tracy K. Smith—was presented at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, November 12 and Saturday, November 13, 2021. The culmination of the Year of Creative Writers series, this festival featured some of the nation’s leading creative writers and authors.

A Year of Creative Writers is presented by Humanities Research Institute and the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English (University of Illinois) and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. Cosponsors include the Institute for the Humanities (University of Illinois Chicago), UIC Program for Writers, UIS Creative Writing, The Champaign Public Library, The Urbana Free Library, Illinois Public Radio and the Illini Union Bookstore.

The series was supported by the Presidential Initiative to Celebrate the Impact of the Arts and the Humanities.