Saints and Sinners Literary Festival

Saints and Sinners Literary Festival 2010 will be next weekend in New Orleans and I will on the program.


The 4 day festival was founded in 2001 as a new initiative designed as an innovative way to reach the community with information about HIV/AIDS, particularly disseminating prevention messages via the writers, thinkers and spokes-people of the GLBT community. It was also formed to bring the GLBT literary community together to celebrate the literary arts.

Now in its eighth year, the Festival has grown into an internationally-recognized event that brings together a who’s who of GLBT publishers, writers and readers from throughout the United States and beyond. The Festival, held over 4 days each Spring, feature panel discussions and master classes around literary topics that provide a forum for authors, editors and publishers to talk about their work for the benefit of emerging writers and the enjoyment of fans of LGBT literature.

One of my opportunities will be reading from my book, Those Others, about 10 minutes, to others who are taking part. Other authors who will be reading during the session are Peter Dube, Collin Kelley, Linda Kay Silva, Shawn Syms, and Chavisa Woods. Other authors will be reading in other sessions.

The other part of the program that I am involved in is a panel discussion.

WRITING OUR HISTORY: PAST AND PRESENT
Activist, historian, writer – or all three? What happens when authors capture aspects of GLBT history in their fictional works? And how can they use their writing to both tell a story and to help move beyond the stone walls of injustice? Join these notable GLBT authors as they discuss the importance of documenting social, political, and personal issues that impact Queer life. These panelists have written about the turmoil of identity politics in the 1960s, the struggle for gay rights abroad, and the
search and fight for acceptance.

Other aspects of the festival include writing competitions (fiction and playwriting), master classes regarding emotions, characters, writers block, epublishing, marketing, intimacy in writing and more.

If you are interested in literature, prose or poetry, make your way to New Orleans next weekend for this event. There will be good food and lots of LGBT New Orleans fun.