loading . . . LitFest Continues Saturday in Pasadena With 35-Plus Panels and Readings LitFest in the Dena, the extraordinary free literary festival serving Pasadena and Altadena, holds its full Saturday program today from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, with panels, workshops and readings built around the 2026 theme “Books That Changed the Public Narrative.” The two-day festival, now in its 14th year, runs at 585 E. Colorado Blvd. The Saturday session carries the bulk of the schedule, which the festival lists as more than 35 panels, workshops and readings across the weekend, featuring more than 100 authors. Admission is free and no registration is required, according to organizers. The festival is presented by Light Bringer Project, a Pasadena-based nonprofit founded in 1990, and the literary journal Locavore Lit LA. Festival materials list the 2026 theme as a focus on books that have shifted public conversations — citing works such as “Silent Spring,” “The Jungle,” “The New Jim Crow,” “On the Road,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and “The Second Sex” as examples of literature that organizers say became part of the national conversation. Featured authors named in the festival’s promotional material include Daniel Olivas, Janet Fitch, Gary Phillips, Ryka Aoki and Francesca Lia Block. Olivas, who lives in Pasadena, is a senior attorney with the California Department of Justice and the author of 13 books, including the 2024 novel “Chicano Frankenstein,” according to his festival biography. A 2:30 p.m. Saturday panel titled “Speaking Truth to Power: Humanizing Immigrant Communities in the Time of ICE” will feature Olivas alongside Lisa Alvarez, LAist arts reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez and speculative fiction writer Pedro Iniguez, with Thomas E. Backer, PhD, moderating, according to the festival’s press release as cited by Altadena Now. Latine literary voices figure prominently elsewhere in Saturday’s schedule. Red Hen Press and Letras Latinas, the literary initiative at the University of https://www.pasadenanow.com/weekendr/litfest-continues-saturday-in-pasadena-with-35-plus-panels-and-readings/
