Tahoe Literary Festival returns to Tahoe City

As excitement builds for the second annual Tahoe Literary Festival taking place Oct. 10 and 11 in Tahoe City, Truckee poet Karen Terrey has unveiled a new poem crafted as a tribute to the region’s community of writers. Terrey is the current Nevada County Poet Laureate, who will be part of the 2025 Tahoe Literary Festival.

“The word cento comes from the Latin word for patchwork garment. A cento is a literary work collaged entirely from other writers’ verses or passages,” writes Terrey on her blog at Tangled Roots Writing. “In their earliest forms, centos were often composed as tribute. Traditionally, a cento is lines from poetry, and in shaping this one, I worked with lines from verse and prose.”

“In shaping this poem, the process was like putting together a puzzle,” Terrey explained. “Each line was chosen, arranged, and woven into a new whole—reflecting the creativity and spirit of Tahoe and Truckee’s literary community.”

Terrey crafted the cento, entitled “Tahoe Stars,” from lines from poetry and prose shared by creatives who participated in the Truckee Literary Crawl in April to reflect the Town of Truckee’s Dark Skies program. Terrey will read the cento at the Tahoe Literary Salon on Aug. 24 at the Tahoe Wine Collective in Tahoe City. The event is free and open to everyone and is a fundraiser for the Tahoe Literary Festival.

Read “Tahoe Stars” cento by Karen Terrey

The event will feature live readings from acclaimed authors and poets including Bridey Thelen-Heidel, Eve Quesnel, Jesse James Ziegler, J. Macon King, Terrey, Kim Bateman, Scott Green, and Priya Hutner.