Chasing Down The Muse: Literary festival a must for women
I was up before dawn on a recent morning. The moonlit ocean looked like a brilliant field.
I longed to run across its expanse even though I knew that was impossible. My “brilliant field” for the day was going to be the Long Beach Convention Center, though, and I could hardly wait.
The annual “Literary Women: The Long Beach Festival of Authors” was being held that day in Long Beach. This is really an all-day event and one of the highlights of my year. While past years’ events have been wonderful, this year surpassed my expectations.
Life, literature, learning and freedom to pursue these were strong themes as the nearly 800 of us listened to the day’s speakers. Throughout the day, our minds were stimulated and challenged to consider these themes and more.
The self-effacing Welsh author Gillian Gill, with wonderful and engaging humor, extolled us to choose life over literature, even as she admitted to often doing the opposite herself. Scholar, author, biographer, grandmother and much more, she titillated and delighted with a seemingly off-the-cuff address.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson graced us with a rapid paced education on the Great Migration, the caste system that caused it, and its many far-reaching effects. I do not hesitate to state that we all could identify in some way with this migration and how it had influenced our many lives.
While her narrative nonfiction telling the epic story of three people who made the decision to migrate is a large and heavy tome, I cannot resist the call to dive into this book and learn still more.
Breakout sessions with one of three different authors allowed us to form somewhat smaller groups. Having attended with two friends, we each chose a different author in order to cover all the bases. I chose the young and effervescent Haley Tanner, who chose to speak on how and from where ideas for writing appear. In a word — delightful!
Friends Cathy and Catherine chose novelist Shilpi Somaya Gowda and mystery novelist Zoe Ferraris. They each reported back that, of course, theirs was the best session to have chosen. Need I say more about the quality of this event?
After a marvelous lunch, we settled back to listen to the final two speakers.
The unassuming, award-winning Canadian novelist Miriam Toews captivated us with the story of her journey to becoming a writer. We were as won over as her editor — who was sitting at the next table over and nodding vigorously throughout with a large smile. Her dry wit drew me in, and I can hardly wait to pick up one of her several books.
Last, but not least, we heard from novelist Lan Samantha Chang, who directs the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her address rounded off the day with grace and humor as she sought to answer questions about herself and her writing that we all might ask.
It was in 1982, with four out of 196 authors on the reading list of a local high school being female authors that a small group of concerned Long Beach women conceived of the idea of this festival of women authors.
The purpose of Literary Women is to “encourage new writers and to expose the work of contemporary women authors to an audience of readers with a wide range of literary interests.”
They have succeeded in doing this and much more. To learn more, Google “Literary Women of Long Beach.” I think you will want to be there yourself next year. But, please, leave a seat for me. I’d hate to miss it!
CHERRIL DOTY is an artist, writer and manager of the Sawdust Studio Art Classes in Laguna Beach. Always fascinated, inspired, and titillated by the beauty and the ever-changing mysteries of life, she can be reached at [email protected] or by phone at (714) 745-9973.