Erica Saffer is a writer, educator, and literacy advocate, living in Jacksonville, Florida with her three children. She graduated from the University of Tampa MFA Program as the Distinguished Graduate and her work has been featured in print and online publications for High Shelf Press, the University of Tampa Press, Women Writing for (a) Change, and others. She currently teaches composition for the Communications Department at Florida State College at Jacksonville and is a two-time Jax by Jax reader.

Hear Saffer read her work on Saturday, October 16th at the JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival at the Jessie Ball DuPont Center downtown.

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.

The JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival is grateful to accept and acknowledge a generous gift from Moving the Margins, a progam of the Jacksonville Cultural Development Corporation directed by the amazing Shawana Brooks. It is the generosity of community organizations and civic-minded citizens that allows JaxbyJax to continue to bring the words of the talented writers of Jacksonville to their appreciative fans. Thank you!

The JaxbyJax Literary Arts Festival VIII is pleased to announce the following slate of writers to read their work at the 2021 event to be held on Friday and Saturday, October 15-16 at the Jessie Ball duPont Center.

Featured Poet: Yvette Angelique

Featured Memoirist: Tricia Booker​

Featured Playwright: Tim Gilmore

Featured Authors: Rodney L. Hurst, Sr. and Rudy F. Jamison, Jr., Ed.D.

John Aloszka

Julie Delegal

Valarie Esguerra

Sohrab Homi Fracis

Melissa Gopp-Warner

Johnny Masiulewicz

Kayla Frances Murray

Tayve Neese

Linda O’Connell

Princess Simpson Rashid

Andres Rojas

Cheri “Junebug” Royal

Erica Susan Saffer

Damon Thomas

Taryn “Love Reigns” Wharwood

Warm congratulations to all the Jacksonville Writers Writing Jacksonville.

With special thanks to Shawana Brooks and the Jacksonville Cultural Development Corporation.