This work cannot be done without your support. APRIL is 100% volunteer run so every dollar you give goes directly to buying program essentials as small as a stamp to as big as an event venue.

APRIL Festival hosts approximately 10 events over the course of a week.

These events can range from Happy Hour readings with a focus on local writers, to the always popular storytelling competition, A Poet, a Playwright, a Novelist and a Drag Queen. Typical APRIL events provide opportunities for small press writers to collaborate with artists of other mediums, from local visual artists who create work in response to small press books for a pop-up art show called Vignettes, to performers creating original theatrical work to showcase alongside readings in the All Made Up Fiction Showcase. And the APRIL Festival always culminates with a Book Expo on the last day, hosting small presses from near and far, from the tiny handmade houses to the biggest of the little guys, which gives folks in Seattle and the surrounding area the opportunity to encounter this incredible work in person, speak to publishers directly, while simultaneously allowing small press publishers to gain audiences they might not otherwise reach.

Here are just a few of the writers and publishers we have hosted over the last few years:

Graywolf, Octopus Books, Dzanc Books, Shya Scanlon, Wendy Xu, Big Fiction, Jac Jemc, Mike Young, Scrambler Books, Michelle Penaloza, Elissa Washuta, Pacifica Literary Review, The Shipping Group, Two Sylvias Press, Matthew Simmons, Future Tense, Lauren Ireland, Magic Helicopter, Matthew Rohrer, Sasquatch Books, Wave Books, Coffee House Press, Matthew Dickman, Minor Arcana Press, Rebecca Brown, Peter Mountford, Heather Christle, Chin Music Press, Emily Kendal Frey, PageBoy Magazine, Yeti Press Comics, Jai-Alai Books, Short Flight/Long Drive, Dorothy

APRIL Press

"They combine up-and-coming local talent with brilliant out-of-town authors and put on events that get copied by other, inferior arts organizations. This is how you lead: by example."

"The book fair was the best book fair that I have been to hands down."

"Was it a reading? A biographical sketch? A religious ceremony? A complex thesis on the troubling relationship between writers and readers? A meditation on the relationship between an artist and her muse? A love story? An elaborate work of fan fiction by one of Seattle’s most brilliant writers? Yes. It was all those things. And wasn’t it just great?"

"We believe everyone is a reader and we want to connect readers with writing, expose them to new stuff, make converts to independent literature."

"On the whole, this year's APRIL Festival ran like a well-oiled machine, but a machine that makes wild deep-truth piñatas."

"This is no series of sedate readings. APRIL wants to bring in people who wouldn’t usually find themselves at literary events, with parties, live music, chapbook-making workshops, and the intriguing “A Poet, a Playwright, and a Drag Queen” competitive storytelling session."

"At the APRIL book festival, I met a reader. Not a student, artist, teacher, or writer (I asked!)—just someone who enjoys reading. It felt kind of like glimpsing an exotic bird or maybe something more slow-moving, like the time I saw a sloth in Costa Rica."

Fund a Need

To give you a sense of what things cost to bring you this most epic of small press adventures, then please consider reviewing our fund a need below. This is also represented in our donor levels to the right. It is important to note that you can become a monthly donor and join The Inner Circle. Monthly billing is available by contacting Amber Nelson at amber@aprilfestival.com.

$25 – Just $25 supports independent literature by helping to fund APRIL props like balloons, raffle tickets, crazy masks, and all the other weirdo shtick you’ve come to know and love from APRIL events. As thanks for your support, APRIL’s very own Willie will make you your very own meme!

$50— It costs APRIL $50 per person to attend each free event during APRIL Festival. By supporting APRIL at this level, you help keep APRIL accessible to all. In thanks, you’ll receive your very own APRIL Tote or APRIL T-Shirt as well as personal phone reading from an APRIL small press author.

$120 or $10 per month— For $120 you can support things like the average cost of hosting local and visiting authors! Approximately 40 authors participate in APRIL every year, and in thanks for you supporting them, the APRIL staff will be your small press matchmaker—delivering 2 APRIL Small Press books to your doorstep.

$300 or $25 per month— Your support at this level is a significant contribution that allows APRIL to produce larger events like A Poet, a Playwright, a Novelist and a Drag Queen. In thanks for your incredible generosity, an APRIL author will write you fan mail!

$500 or $41.67 per month— Show our Writer-in-Residence the greatness of Seattle’s literary scene. You know what they say? GO BIG OR GO HOME. As a thanks for your incredibly generous support, you will get an exclusive opportunity to brunch with the APRIL Writer-in-Residence and the APRIL staff.

$1000 or $83.33 per month—You can make APRIL dreams come true! Major Donors support APRIL by offering the flexibility to bring you even more of the programming you’ve come to love and expect from APRIL. As a token of our gratitude for your incredible generosity, $1000 donors would be invited to a SECRET and EXCLUSIVE private reading and dining experience—an event so private and exclusive that even POTUS would be jealous.