"The Guernsey Literary and Potatoe Peel Pie Society" author Annie Barrows
"Olive Kitteridge" author Elizabeth Strout
"Because A Fire Was In My Head" author Lynn Stegner
"The Bishop's Daughter" author Honor Moore
"The House On Fortune Street" author Margot Livesey
"Mudbound" author Hillary Jordan
"Loving Frank" author: Nancy Horan
Literary Women: The Long Beach Festival of Authors, February 21, Long Beach http://www.literarywomen.org/
“The purpose of Literary Women: The Long Beach Festival of Authors is to celebrate women authors, to encourage new writers and to expose the works of contemporary women authors to an audience of readers with a wide range of literary interests.”
The Festival of Authors is an all day event held in one of the main ballrooms of the Long Beach Convention Center. In the wee hours of the morning you will find approximately 700 lucky ticket holders (made up of mostly women-I'll be one of them!) waiting for the ballroom doors to open. Beautifully appointed tables of eight are set up throughout the room with two major podiums for speakers on opposing sides of the room. Coffee and pastries are served in the Foyer waiting area. The first two hours are filled with two authors who will speak for about one hour each. Then there is a break -out session in three adjoining smaller conference rooms. Guests have preselected which author they would like to listen to for the more intimate settings. There is time for purchasing books and booksigning before lunch is served in the main ballroom. The afternoon session resumes with two more authors speaking. This is a wonderful, annual, event which provides a platform for contemporary women authors.
February 21, 2009
2009 Festival of Authors
Click here to learn more about 2009's authors
Some history on this event:
In 1982, four out of one hundred ninety-six authors on the reading list at Wilson High School in Long Beach were women. Appalled by this ratio, two community-spirited women—Harriet Williams and Virginia Laddey—decided to alter the imbalance. Together, with a committee of women from fifteen other community organizations, they created Literary Women and designed a Festival of Authors as an all-day event where readers would be introduced to women authors in an informal setting conducive to the free exchange of literary ideas.
Today, twenty-seven years later, the Founders’ vision to make the works of women authors more readily accessible to the public continues. To date, more than 10,000 women have had opportunities to meet and hear more than one hundred seventy highly successful women authors.
The Committee of Literary Women which annually organizes the Festival is all unpaid volunteers. They believe implicitly in the continuing need to provide the Long Beach community with a cultural forum which reflects its diversity of literary interests and viewpoints. The success of their efforts is seen in the ongoing popularity of each event; seven hundred avid readers attend yearly. Their enthusiastic responses to the authors attest to the fact that the intentions of the original committee were well-founded and have been brought to fruition by succeeding generations of women.
Literary Women: The Festival of Women Authors has become a showcase in the cultural calendar of the City of Long Beach. So successful is it that other cities in the State of California have used it as a model to create festivals of their own.
Another community service offered by the Committee of Literary Women is its presentation of scholarships to new and aspiring writers. The recipients of such scholarships are invited to attend the Festival expressly to meet the presenting authors who offer invaluable support as role models for them.
As an added incentive for students to read more works by women authors, the Literary Women’s Committee donates both books and funds to the Long Beach Public Library and to libraries in local schools.
Since its inception, Literary Women has been honored by numerous public organizations for its continuing dedication to the original proposition of its founding members that literature by women greatly enhances a community’s quality of life.
2009 Festival of Authors
Click here to learn more about 2009's authors
Some history on this event:
In 1982, four out of one hundred ninety-six authors on the reading list at Wilson High School in Long Beach were women. Appalled by this ratio, two community-spirited women—Harriet Williams and Virginia Laddey—decided to alter the imbalance. Together, with a committee of women from fifteen other community organizations, they created Literary Women and designed a Festival of Authors as an all-day event where readers would be introduced to women authors in an informal setting conducive to the free exchange of literary ideas.
Today, twenty-seven years later, the Founders’ vision to make the works of women authors more readily accessible to the public continues. To date, more than 10,000 women have had opportunities to meet and hear more than one hundred seventy highly successful women authors.
The Committee of Literary Women which annually organizes the Festival is all unpaid volunteers. They believe implicitly in the continuing need to provide the Long Beach community with a cultural forum which reflects its diversity of literary interests and viewpoints. The success of their efforts is seen in the ongoing popularity of each event; seven hundred avid readers attend yearly. Their enthusiastic responses to the authors attest to the fact that the intentions of the original committee were well-founded and have been brought to fruition by succeeding generations of women.
Literary Women: The Festival of Women Authors has become a showcase in the cultural calendar of the City of Long Beach. So successful is it that other cities in the State of California have used it as a model to create festivals of their own.
Another community service offered by the Committee of Literary Women is its presentation of scholarships to new and aspiring writers. The recipients of such scholarships are invited to attend the Festival expressly to meet the presenting authors who offer invaluable support as role models for them.
As an added incentive for students to read more works by women authors, the Literary Women’s Committee donates both books and funds to the Long Beach Public Library and to libraries in local schools.
Since its inception, Literary Women has been honored by numerous public organizations for its continuing dedication to the original proposition of its founding members that literature by women greatly enhances a community’s quality of life.
