Full Day Schedule

The festival begins before the first panel. Collect your badge, wander the community booths, pause at the book signing tables, and find your chai. Let the morning unfold — Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya

Once Upon the tale: Stories for Little Listeners

A dedicated space for children and families featuring interactive storytelling, poetry for young minds, and culturally rich narratives spanning festivals, seasons, and South Asian traditions.

The best conversations happen over a cup that never quite empties. Between Sips a collection of stories by Alamkrutha Gamini.

Page to Perception: How Literature Shapes the India We Imagine.

This panel explores how contemporary Indian voices across literature, scholarship, and the arts are reshaping narratives about India in a global context. Discussion spans memory, migration, history, culture, and how creators negotiate authenticity versus audience expectation.

Motherhood, Daughterhood & the Self We Carry.

An intimate reading salon and workshop exploring identity, womanhood, and the bonds between mothers and daughters — the roles that are written versus the roles we choose to play. Examines how women inherit, resist, and redefine cultural expectations while forging their own sense of self across borders, languages, and generations.

An exclusive book launch celebration featuring a reading, author conversation, and book signing.

Ahmed Athar (Rik) is a Pakistani filmmaker, playwright, and storyteller based in Chicago.

Nishant Pandey rendition of poems.

A Writer's Workshop

An interactive writers' workshop for aspiring and emerging writers exploring the art and craft of storytelling. Guided prompts, close reading, and collaborative exercises help participants develop authentic voice and deepen narrative impact. Covers character, structure, revision, and the discipline of sustaining a writing practice.

Fiction, Truth and Everything in Between

In a literary and tech-enabled landscape shaped by memory, history, innovation and imagination, today's writers are constantly negotiating the space between what is lived, what is remembered and what is invented.

In the Age of AI - Who is the genuine Writer

A question the literary world is circling without yet answering seriously. AI produces text that is structurally coherent, tonally plausible, and often indistinguishable from competent prose. So what remains? What does genuine authorship require that a language model cannot replicate?

Rooted in the landscapes, languages, and lived experiences of Karnataka, this session delves into the richness of Kannada storytelling — from ancient vachanas and classical poetry to modern fiction and contemporary voices — revealing how 'the soil' itself becomes a powerful metaphor for identity, resilience, and belonging.

Unfiltered Spoken Word Showcase — Open Mic · Poetry · Storytelling

An open platform for spoken word artists, poets, and storytellers from across the South Asian diaspora. 10–12 performers, 3 minutes each.

A glamorous red carpet reception welcoming guests to the evening gala of the Chicago Indian Literature Festival 2026.

Opening remarks by the Founder & President, introductions of the CICA Board and Advisory Board, and welcome to the evening celebration.

A literary feast: food, culture & storytelling

A culinary panel bringing together Chicago's most celebrated South Asian chefs, food writers, and restaurateurs for a conversation on food, culture, and identity. In Indian literature, food is never just sustenance — it is memory, identity, and a language of love, loss, and belonging.

Inspiring addresses from distinguished guests of the Chicago Indian Literature Festival 2026.

An evening keynote address from a distinguished guest speaker.

Music · Dance · Classical Arts

An evening of cultural performances celebrating the richness and diversity of South Asian artistic traditions.