Women’s Literary Festival

The first Women’s Literary Festival was initiated 12 years ago as a Santa Barbara event by Gail Marshall and her daughter Jennifer Adams, and this weekend marks the 12th Annual Women’s Literary Festival,  taking place on Saturday, October 28 from 8:30 a.m.–3:30 p.m. at Fess Parker A Doubletree by Hilton Resort (633 E. Cabrillo Blvd.).

The idea to showcase women authors was inspired by their attendance at the Long Beach Women’s Festival. With a mission to celebrate diversity, literacy and social justice through women writers, the Santa Barbara event celebrates both the writers and readers connections to each other’s human spirit through dialogues on the inner dynamics of the creative writing process as it interweaves within the authors’ writing genre.

The five distinguished authors invited this year represent a diversity in fiction and nonfiction work and include:

Steph Cha, crime fiction mystery writer

Micheline Aharonian Marcom, a fiction novelist who bases her work on historical events

Enid Osborn, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate

Kate Schatz, a New York Times bestselling author of Rad Women books

Andrea Smith activist/author on women of color and Native American violence

The registration fee ($65) includes coffee, lunch and all author presentations, including Breakout Sessions. To register, visit womensliteraryfestival.com.

—Leslie Dinaberg

Originally published in Santa Barbara Seasons on October 26, 2017.