KITCHENER - Kitchener is pulling out of the national Word on the Street literary festival in favour of a series of literary events throughout the year.

The city announced Wednesday it is pulling out of the festival, which it has hosted for 15 years. Instead, it plans to hold ImagineIt, a series of events in partnership with Kitchener Public Library that "will focus on fun and interesting ways to connect the community through engaging events that celebrate reading, writing and literacy," according to the ImagineIt website.

Kitchener was one of five cities across Canada that held a local Word on the Street festival every September. The other four - Halifax, Saskatoon, Lethbridge and Toronto - are still slated to go ahead with festivals this fall.

Word on the Street is thriving in the other cities - the Toronto event drew 225,000 people in 2014 - but attendance at the Kitchener festival has dwindled over the years, from 5,000 to 7,000 at its peak to between 2,000 and 3,000 after it moved from its original location in Victoria Park to the City Hall Rotunda and the Kitchener Market.

"We had a good run with Word on the Street," said Jeff Young, Kitchener's manager of special events. "The feedback was that people just want a variety of offerings, not just an opportunity to come and listen to some authors, which was primarily what the event had become, in addition to having some vendors."

Kitchener's festival has not been without controversy. Last year, festival organizers decided not to have tables for local vendors and exhibitors, which prompted an outcry from local authors. The city reversed the decision after having received a flurry of objections that the festival was a way for fledgling authors to find audiences.

Words Worth Books stopped participating in the Kitchener festival after the city gave Chapters the sole rights to sell the books of authors reading at Word on the Street, a move that hurt local booksellers, said David Worsley, co-owner of the Waterloo bookstore.

"We could bring other stock, but nobody's coming to buy that. In the last few years, it appears nobody came for much else either," he said.

The city and public library are still working on the type and timing of events for the new ImagineIt series, Young said. Some programs will piggyback on existing events such as the Kidspark children's festival or Family Literacy day events, but the idea is to hold events throughout the year and across the city, he said. The new series will have the same $20,000 budget Word on the Street did and will include events to support aspiring writers.

Details will unfold on the city's old Word on the Street webpage.

Worsley welcomed the effort to come up with a new literary festival, saying there is a strong literary culture locally.

"We would be thrilled if they get it off the ground," he said.

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"There is very definitely an appetite for things literary in this community," Worsley said. "A literary festival is a natural idea and should be a going concern here. There are dozens and dozens of published authors here in K-W."

The Wild Writers Literary Festival is evidence of that, he said. The festival, which was held for the fourth year last November, has seen attendance grow and is now hearing from authors petitioning to get in, he said.