Big Bend Instructor, Author participating in “Get Lit! Festival”

MOSES LAKE — Big Bend Community College (BBCC) English Department Senior Faculty member Matthew Sullivan will be in Spokane this week participating in Eastern Washington University’s Get Lit! Festival.

Each spring, the Get Lit! Festival invites selected authors to Spokane to share their work and their passion for writing. Some of these authors enjoy a reputation in the Northwest, while others have earned national or even international renown.

The weeklong celebration features presentations and readings, writing workshops and panel discussions, visits by authors to K-12 schools and colleges/universities, community readings, and poetry slams, along with other events.

Sullivan’s debut novel, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore (Scribner, 2017) was an Indie Next pick, a Barnes & Noble Discover pick, and a Goodreads Choice Award finalist.

His stories have been awarded the Robert Olen Butler Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Prize, and his writing has appeared in The New York Times, Lit Hub, Joyland, The Masters Review, and elsewhere. He was raised in a giant family in Colorado and received his M.F.A. from the University of Idaho, and for the past 15 years, he has been teaching writing at BBCC in Moses Lake.

Sullivan will be serving on a panel with the topic “Killer Crime” on Friday.

“It is going to discuss the blurring of lines between ‘literary’ fiction and genre fiction, the changing role of violence and suspense, and other related topics,” Sullivan said. “We’ll also be giving a reading on Saturday at the Montvale Events Center.”

The complete Get Lit! Festival schedule here.