The Lit Crawl was created by San Francisco’s Litquake literary festival back in 2004, and the idea was simple: let’s transform an ordinary bar crawl into a mob scene of literary mayhem. Could we take over a neighborhood, or two, add pop-up events to every venue that might allow it (bars, cafes, bookstores, theaters, galleries, clothing boutiques, furniture showrooms, parking lots, Laundromats, bee-keeping supply shops), invite dozens of authors to read from their work, and watch hundreds of literati tromp the route and get drunk on words — all for free?

Not only was the concept wildly popular, it has expanded every year. San Francisco’s closing night Lit Crawl now attracts over 6,000 people, and is the world’s largest such event. In 2008 Lit Crawl NYC launched in Manhattan, also an immediate hit. Austin was next, swarming for the first time in 2011. And in 2012, Lit Crawl birthed two more Lit Crawls, one in Brooklyn, another in Seattle. The first London Lit Crawl was held in September 2013.

The striking thing about Lit Crawl, actually, was not the variegated writerly menu nor was it the variety of venues—54 of them, including bookstores, bars, coffee shops, galleries and a bee-keeping supply store. Rather it was the specter of writing and literature—literature!—transforming an ordinary Saturday night in the neighborhood into a carnival of sorts. Up and down Valencia Street, crowds overflowed out of open doorways, and between readings, people hustled from one event to another or gathered on street corners clutching red Lit Crawl maps like participants in a mammoth scavenger hunt. —New York Times describing San Francisco’s Lit Crawl 2011.