The four-day HEAR Now Festival, the audio equivalent of a film festival, returns to Kansas City to celebrate storytelling in all forms: solo and multi-voiced performances, classic radio drama, experimental narrative, and more.

It opens at the Plaza Branch with a session, Innovations, that spotlights advances in the world of audio storytelling and boasts a lineup of acclaimed narrators. Audie Award winner William Dufris and public radio's Angela Elam emcee. Participants also include multiple Audie winner and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy actor Simon Jones and Dion Graham, who played diplomatic security agent Fred Cole in in CBS’ Madam Secretary.