On Saturday, November 8, 2014, Dr. Tim Gilmore and his wife, Professor Jo Carlisle, both of FSCJ, gathered fourteen writer friends into nine venues near the corner of Park & King Streets in Riverside for the inaugural JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival.

As described in the archival 2014 events page, lovers of literature were invited to “Wander from venue to venue. Have a drink. Come hear a playwright, then a poet, then a novelist, and in the process visit a pub, a coffeehouse, the offices of Jacksonville magazine. Buy a t-shirt, nosh on some vegetarian snacks, and listen to a poet in the shaded back courtyard of a Riverside bungalow. And do it all in any order you want. Choose your own adventure. At Park & King. In the heart of Riverside.”

Most of the writers are still around the Jacksonville area; sadly, many of the venues are not. Take a walk through the archives from 2014 to 2020 to see how JaxbyJax has evolved, and watch this space daily to keep informed about all the exciting plans for JaxbyJax VIII on October 15 and 16, 2021.