By Mark Bialczak

LPL Communications Specialist

It’s time to celebrate the creativity in our community.

The Music and Literature Festival will bring together a big batch of talented artists to share their stories about life striving to make the most of what their minds and hearts tell them they can accomplish.

The doors of the LPL’s Carman Community Room will be open to all who’d like to hear them talk about how and why, from noon to 2 p.m. Sunday, April 2.

There’s an exciting lineup of authors who’ve promised to attend, including:

Alexandra Corliss, who’s written “Once in a Blue Moon” and “Red Wing Twister Warriors: Battle of Galaxy Maxima;” Shea Brode, “It’s the Disney Version: Popular Cinema and Literary Classics;” Milt Franson, “The Wineland Sagas: The Lost Viking Colonies of North America;” Chris Partosa and Elizabeth Williams, “Jim’s Flight: One Soul’s Perspective from Heaven;” Geri Goss and Liz Exner, “Jeans to Things;” Eileen K. Parsons,  “The First Rose of  Summer;” Gayle Callen and Emma Cane, “The Wrong Bride,” “The Groom Wore Plaid,” “At Fairfield Orchard,” and “A Spiced Apple Winter;” Maggie Shayne, “Oklahoma Christmas Blue,” Oklahoma Moonshine” and “Oklahoma Starshine;” Patricia Antone, “Catching a Cowboy’s Eye;” T.E. Bradford, “Surviving Cancer – A Story of Hope;” and Nancy Henderson, “Second Beginnings” and “Litter Boxes and Hairballs: My Life with Cats.”

They’ll also be able to talk about the publishing process, which always seems daunting for first-timers.

The authors will sell and autograph their books.

This time around, I’ll attend the event, ready to talk with the musical-minded of the community who can drop in for a spell. Before I started working at the LPL almost a year ago, my job history included 21 years as music critic and writer for The Syracuse Post-Standard and Syracuse.com. After leaving there in early 2013, I continued to write about the scene for several sites, including my own blog, markbialczak.com.

I’ve seen and heard thousands of bands, of all styles and ages.

We book concerts here at the LPL, I hope you know, and I take photos and videos for our social media. E.S.P. closes the Origins of Jazz II Series at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 9, with modern jazz in the Carman Community Room.

We’re planning expanded music presence as our website LPL.org goes through changes this spring, which includes a blog. We’re looking to increase our local music collection of CDs to lend to the community, too.

Musicians can come by Sunday to talk to me about any or all of this. Bring a CD for me to write about and then pass along to Librarian Annette Friedrichs, who curates the local music collection.

I can’t resist one last tease. I’m scheduled to talk later this week to a young musician who grew up nearby and then went on to national fame. Guitarist Josh Burke is back home to play a show Friday night, March 31, with The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus at North Syracuse Junior High School. I’ve invited him to drop by the Music and Literature Fest on Sunday, too. He’s checking his schedule with the band.