After a year-long hiatus, the Literary Women Festival of Authors conference, an event celebrating and entirely dedicated to female writers, is returning in person to the Long Beach Convention Center March 19 with seven new authors slated to appear.

The day-long conference is a popular affair in Long Beach, generally attracting hundreds of authors and bibliophiles from across the country and typically sells out quickly, in no small part because the conference has attracted some of the top writing talents in the world, including past featured guests Octavia Butler, Aimee Bender, Carolyn See and Barbara Kingsolver.

This year’s lineup again features seven writers, including rising star Alexandra Andrews, who made waves in the literary world last year with her new book “Who is Maud Dixon?,” a witty psychological thriller about a low-level publishing employee who seeks to become a famous writer at any cost. The novel, published by Little, Brown and Company, has been translated for readers around the world, with rights sold to 27 territories. Universal Studios snapped up film rights before the book was even published on March 2, 2021.

“We are excited to be able to host the event live this year with our traditional crowd-pleasing agenda,” said the organization’s Chairwoman Barbara Wilde in a release.

The complete list of featured authors includes:

  • Alexandra Andrews, author of “Who is Maud Dixon?”
  • Kendra Atleework, author of “Miracle Country: A Memoir of a Family and a Landscape,” has won numerous awards including the Sigurd F. Olsen Nature Writing Award and the Women Writing the West WILLA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction.
  • Amaryllis Fox, author of “Life Undercover” a memoir about her undercover work as a CIA operative in remote areas of the Middle East as an art dealer, infiltrating terrorist networks and hunting down arms dealers.
  • Sarah Gailey, author of “Echo Wife,” a science fiction-esque thriller about a renowned human clones researcher whose clone, Martine, begins an affair with her husband.
  • Ladee Hubbard, author of “The Rib King,” a historical thriller centered on the lives of Black civil rights crusaders.
  • Megha Majumdar, author of “A Burning,” A New York Times bestseller thriller about a Muslim woman in Kolkata is accused of a terrorist outrage.
  • Dorothy Wickenden, author of “The Agitators” a historical novel about the women abolitionists, the Underground Railroad, the early women’s rights movement and the Civil War.

Attendees will be able to hear the authors speak about their writing careers and published works. The headlining lecture in the main ballroom will include Alexandria Andrews, Amaryllis Fox, Ladee Hubbard and Dorothy Wickenden. The event will also include three smaller breakout sessions with Kendra Atleework, Sarah Gailey and Megha Majumdar. Note: the smaller breakout groups will happen simultaneously and registrants will have to choose which of the three authors they would prefer to see.

The conference will be celebrating its 40th year in Long Beach since its inception in 1982 by Harriet Williams and Virginia Laddey who, frustrated by the scarcity of female authors in the reading lists at Long Beach high schools, got together to create an event meant to alter that imbalance by celebrating and supporting female writers. Part of this support includes the Harriet Williams Emerging Writer Program, which selects promising female writers from the Cal State Long Beach, Long Beach City College, Chapman University and PEN America to attend the festival.

This year’s winners includes Paula Abascal, an MFA fiction writer student at CSULB; Marie Cartier, a creative writing student at LBCC; Christina Garcia a creative writing MFA student at CSULB; Montéz Louria a creative writing and English student at Chapman University; Santa-Victoria Pérez an MFA fellow at Chapman University; Tina Thompson a fiction writing MFA student at CSULB; and Nancy Lynée Woo, an MFA candidate at Antioch University.

Registration is $115 and may be purchased online, click here. The registration fee also includes lunch. Per city health guidelines, the Literary Women Festival of Authors requires its attendees to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to attend. Masks must be worn while indoors.

Click here for more information.

The Long Beach Convention Center is at 300 E. Ocean Blvd.