Fort Lauderdale Has a Literary Festival You Should Know About, Too

Five years ago, Darius V. Daughtry was staring at literacy data for Fort Lauderdale’s Sistrunk neighborhood, the community where he grew up, and where he later taught middle school and high school English, creative writing, and theatre. What he saw stopped him cold. The numbers were staggering, and educators he knew, from preschool through high school, were telling him the same thing: Kids were underperforming in reading. 

“The libraries kind of saved my own life,” says Daughtry, who founded the nonprofit Art Prevails Project a decade ago in response to the gutting of arts programs from schools. “I spent hours and hours in my community libraries, and when I looked through the data for local communities, the literacy rates I saw were just staggering. I thought, ‘What can I do to help bridge some gaps?’” 

His answer was Our Voices: Festival of Words, a literary festival designed to put books directly in people’s hands and make reading desirable. The first edition, back in 2022, spanned one day. It was a success, and Daughtry sought ways to do more. 

“Great isn’t good enough,” he tells New Times. “Like, that was cool, but I thought, ‘What else can we do?’ I want to make the idea of words — and reading, and writing, and language — cool; something that seems accessible and attractive to everyone in the community.”

A Festival All Its Own

By the second year, the festival had grown into its current three-day form. Now in its fourth year, Our Voices has quietly become one of South Florida’s most substantive and accessible literary events, with a lineup and community footprint that punch well above its grassroots weight. 

For those keeping score regionally, yes, Dade has O, Miami — the beloved poetry organization that programs events in its home city throughout the month of April. Daughtry has nothing but love for them (“The folks at O, Miami are my homies,” he quips). He was inspired by it as well as the Miami Book Fair, both events that intertwine literacy into South Florida’s everyday life, meeting people where they are.

This year, Our Voices opens on Thursday, April 23, with Lit Lounge, a reception featuring live painting, local poets, MCs, songwriters, and improv artists sharing work in what Daughtry describes as an “intimate, jazzy kind of space.” 

The following morning, the festival travels to NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale, where 200 elementary school students will attend a curated book fair with free donated books (from Books & Books and Miami-Dade and Broward public libraries) and take in a live performance, museum tour, and more. The kids can choose whatever strikes their fancy.

“I’ve seen so many smiles on these children’s faces whenever that happens,” Daughtry says. “It’s not what their teacher told them to grab. It’s not what their parents told them to grab. Sometimes it’s just, ‘Oh, this cover looks pretty,’ or ‘It looks exciting’ — and that’s what they grab. That moment, seeing that kind of joy and ownership, is one of the most exciting parts of the whole festival for me.”

That evening, the festival hosts its now-signature Intimate Evening series. Past headliners have included Pulitzer Prize winner Jericho Brown and poet Mahogany L. Browne. This year, acclaimed poet Aja Monet — whose work moves fluidly between surrealism and social urgency — takes the stage at the Bienes Gallery inside the Broward County Main Library for a performance and conversation with writer and radio host Wilkine Brutus. 

The festival concludes with a free family day on Saturday, April 25, featuring everything from panel discussions to film screenings, a children’s village, a zen zone, food trucks, booksellers, live performances, and appearances by Monet, former U.S. Presidential Inaugural Poet Richard Blanco, and Haitian-American novelist Fabienne Josaphat. 

What ties it all together is Daughtry’s curatorial philosophy, which has less to do with prestige and everything to do with local presence.

“I don’t care how many accolades you have,” Daughtry says. “That’s cool and all, but if you can’t bend down and be with the people, if you can’t reach out and touch the grandmother who listens to your story and is reminded of her own life…If you can’t smile and engage with this little boy who is just excited that you’re in front of him, then this is not the festival for you. Here, we need you to be of the people and for the people.”

Our Voices: Festival of Words. Thursday, April 23, through Saturday, April 25, at various venues in Fort Lauderdale. ourvoicesfest.com.