LitFest Pasadena 2022 will return in person for the first time since 2019 with five days of programming in April and May.

This 10th year of the festival will feature names such as Michael Connelly, Naomi Hirahara, Gregg Hurwitz, Steph Cha and Attica Locke, along with a host of other novelists, non-fiction writers, poets, and at least one political memoirist, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank.

LitFest Pasadena spans five days over three weeks, with programs scheduled on three Saturdays, April 30, May 7, and May 14, and a pair of Wednesdays, May 4 and May 11.

Panels will focus on such topics as mysteries and memoirs, food in fiction, and writing as a tool of social change.

LitFest kicks off on April 30 at the Mountain View Mausoleum in Altadena, an architecturally significant 1923 building, and the perfect place for a day focused on crime, horror, and speculative fiction given the themes and body counts in some of the writers’ books.

Connelly and Hurwitz will be in conversation with each other in the highest-profile panel of the day. Other programs include literary mysteries, with writers such as Joe Ide and Wendy Heard, and horror with novelists including Carlos Allende and Joanne Parypinski, the geography of crime.

The geography of crime is the theme of a panel that will include Steph Cha and Antoine Wilson. Natashia Deón will discuss speculative fiction on a panel that also includes Jalondra Davis, Kate Maruyama, and Nicole Sconiers.

The two Wednesday lineups are hosted in partnership with the Altadena Library. Among the highlights are panels on Writing as a Tool for Social Justice and Social Change, which includes Hirahara and Locke on May 4, and Writers Friendships, which features Michelle Latiolais and festival co-founder Jervey Tervalon.

The programming on Saturday, May 7, turns LitFest Pasadena’s spotlight on a mostly local lineup. Red Hen Press Day features that local publisher, along with other local publishers and writers, in a variety of panels and workshops.

The final day of LitFest Pasadena, on Saturday, May 14, includes a panel titled Telling on Yourself: The Challenges and the Rewards of Writing Memoir,” which features Tembi Locke, Maggie Rowe, and Samantha Dunn, who in addition to being a memoirist is a senior editor for the Southern California News Group, and cohost of its online book club Bookish.

May 14 also includes panels on picture books, middle-grade books and YA literature, a pair of romance panels, a session on food and fiction, and a program on the Southern California novel.

The festival wraps up that day with Schiff in conversation with Pasadena Star-News public editor and festival co-founder Larry Wilson, talking about Schiff’s recent memoir, “Midnight in Washington, How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could.”

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