Pasadena Senior Center’s Leader to Anchor Ageism Panel at Free Literary Festival

When Akila Gibbs takes a seat on a panel at Pasadena Presbyterian Church next week, she’ll bring with her more than 15 years of watching Pasadena’s older residents navigate a world that often stops seeing them.

Gibbs, executive director of the Pasadena Senior Center, is one of three panelists in “Gee I Can’t Wait to Age! — Said No One Ever,” a conversation on women and ageism at LitFest in the Dena 2026. The free two-day literary festival returns to 585 E. Colorado Blvd. on May 1 and 2 with a program built around the theme “Books That Changed the Public Narrative.”

Founded in 2012 and now in its 14th year, the festival relocated from Altadena’s Mountain View Mausoleum to Pasadena Presbyterian Church in 2025, after the Eaton Fire led to that site being used for Army Corps of Engineers recovery operations, according to Altadena Now.

The ageism panel, moderated by literacy advocate Dena Spanos-Hawkey, also features journalist and feminist writer Ellen Snortland and Adriana Mendoza, who festival organizers identify as associate state director at AARP California. Pasadena Unified School District students will perform in “Pieces of Us with the PUSD ThinkTank,” according to the festival’s press release.

The weekend program includes panels on immigration, crime fiction, fantasy, and racial justice, plus a Latine literature reading co-presented by Red Hen Press and the University of Notre Dame’s Letras Latinas initiative.

Friday programming runs 6 to 9:30 p.m. Saturday runs 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Admission is free. Full schedule at www.litfestinthedena.org/schedule2026.

Gibbs has led the Pasadena Senior Center since 2008. The center sits at the corner of a city that has spent more than 15 months rebuilding — which may be exactly when the question of how a community values its elders is worth asking.