In 2020, Gulfport’s Read Out festival found more people than ever flocking to the three-day celebration of lesbian literature, so 2021 looked even more promising.
And even with the pandemic forcing the event to go virtual, interest and demand in the festival—which just wrapped its three-day run this weekend—continued to rise.
As the festival approached, event organizers told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay they had to expand Zoom capabilities to accommodate everyone who registered (some of whom got placed on a waitlist due to demand). All told more than 900 people joined more than 80 lesbian authors, plus lesbian musicians, spoken word artists, and comics who all demonstrated “how Lesbian Voices Persist and Prevail in these transformative times.”
The festival—a project of the Gulfport Library’s LGBTQ Resource Center—is already looking forward to 2022, and will keep fans informed via social media and its mailing list.
You can support Read Out by making a donation on its website.
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Gulfport’s 5th annual ReadOut Festival, a celebration of lesbian literature, virtually returns this February
This article appears in Feb 25 – Mar 3, 2021.
