{"id":202627,"date":"2026-03-03T19:42:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T19:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202627\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T19:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T19:42:09","slug":"long-beach-group-literary-women-celebrates-books-by-female-authors-press-telegram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/202627\/","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach group Literary Women celebrates books by female authors \u2013 Press Telegram"},"content":{"rendered":"

Harriet Williams, a voracious reader and community leader, could not believe it when her son brought home his high school reading list in the early 1980s. There were 98 male authors on that list \u2014 but only two women.<\/p>\n

Not one to complain and do nothing, Williams, a member of the Long Beach school board, had an idea: Why not bring women authors from around the nation to Long Beach to showcase their talents and change the imbalance that favored male authors?<\/p>\n

With the help of a friend, Virginia Laddey, Williams\u2019 idea led to the creation in 1982 of Literary Women and its Festival of Authors, which has since become one of the hottest tickets to get in Long Beach. The festival will return on Saturday, March 7.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Literary Women Festival of Authors is being held at the Long Beach Convention Center, March 9, 2024. (Photo by Stephanie E\u2019amato, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

\"Guest<\/p>\n

Guest browse through books at the Literary Women Long Beach Festival of Authors in Long Beach, CA, on Saturday, February 11, 2023. (Photo by Tracey Roman, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

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The Literary Women Festival of Authors is being held at the Long Beach Convention Center, March 9, 2024. (Photo by Stephanie E\u2019amato, Contributing Photographer)\n<\/p>\n

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In recent years, some 800\u00a0 women, and a handful of men, have packed the Long Beach Convention & Entertainment Center to hear an all-star cast of women authors talk about their books.<\/p>\n

This year, Literary Women will celebrate its 44th year with another outstanding lineup of authors.<\/p>\n

But if you were thinking of going to the event, you\u2019re much too late.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s event sold out in an amazing time of less than 48 hours, said Dr. Monica Leff, chair of the festival.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got such an enthusiastic response,\u201d Leff said. \u201cThere\u2019s something magical about spending a day immersed in books and conversation. Each year, the festival reminds us how powerful stories can be when we share them. Harriet Williams would be pleased.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first festival started by Williams and Laddey got off to a modest start, with 200 attending to hear a few speakers at a local hotel. Little did Williams and Laddey know how popular their idea would become.<\/p>\n

Williams died in 2016 at the age of 89 after struggling with Parkinson\u2019s disease and rheumatoid arthritis. She died in Berkeley, where she started a similar Festival of Women Authors at the YMCA Berkeley\/Oakland.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s lineup of authors is exactly what Williams and Laddey had in mind when they created Literary Women. The books, all written by women, offer a wide variety of subjects to appeal to the literary tastes of all word lovers.<\/p>\n

Here is the list of speakers, with book descriptions provided by Literary Women:<\/p>\n

Karissa Chen: In her debut novel, \u201cHomeseeking,\u201d Chen delivers an epic tale of love, loss and longing shaped by the Chinese diaspora. The novel follows the lives of Suchi and Haiwen, a couple separated by history and circumstance.
\nBarbara Demick: Journalist Demick\u2019s latest work, \u201cDaughters of the Bamboo Grove:\u00a0 From China to America, a True Story,\u201d is narrative non-fiction at its best. She brings China\u2019s one-child policy to life with the heartfelt story of twin sisters separated at birth: one growing up in China with her mother, the other with her adoptive family in Texas.
\nClaire Hoffman: In \u201cSister, Sinner,\u201d author and journalist Hoffman brings to life the spectacular and intriguing tale of Aimee Semple McPherson, a celebrity evangelist who built a mega chuch in Los Angeles in the early part of the 20th century, which spread nationally and globally \u2014 and remains in existence today.
\nAmanda Peters: Written before her award-winning debut novel, \u201cThe Berry Pickers\u201d is a collection of short stories, while \u201cWaiting for the Long Night Moon\u201d is how she got started in writing. Her stories in this collection are deeply rooted in the Canadian indigenous experience.
\nNayantara Roy: In her sweeping multi-generational debut novel, \u201cThe Magnificent Ruins,\u201d Roy writes of Lila De, a young Indian American editor in New York who inherits her family\u2019s sprawling ancestral mansion in Kolkata, India.\u00a0 The inheritance forces her to confront her multi-generational family and, in particular, her estranged mother.\u00a0 Lila discovers long-buried secrets and her own conflicted feelings about her heritage and the two places she calls home.
\nAnamely Salgado Reyes: \u201cMy Mother Cursed My Name\u201d is about a Mexican American girl who is forced to help her estranged grandmother\u2019s spirit cross over by fulfilling her spirit\u2019s wish that her body be taken back to Mexico.\u00a0 In the book, a decade\u2019s worth of resentment, secrets, generational curses and well-intentioned mistakes threaten to extinguish her private yearning and damage her relationship with her mother.
\nRufi Thorpe: Funny and filled with sharp insight, \u201cMargo\u2019s Got Money Troubles\u201d is a bold and heartwarming story about one young woman\u2019s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood and her meager bank account in an increasingly online world. Thorpe has created a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine in a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative.<\/p>\n

In keeping with its mission, Literary Women has also invited emerging writers from Long Beach City College, Cal State Long Beach, Chapman University and PEN America Los Angeles to attend the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is our hope,\u201d Leff said, \u201cthat these emerging writers will be encouraged to pursue literary aspirations as envisioned by our festival founders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Book lovers going to this year\u2019s festival are in for a treat.<\/p>\n

For the rest of you, start planning for next year\u2019s festival, which is scheduled for March 6, 2027. If you need more information, go to literarywomen.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Harriet Williams, a voracious reader and community leader, could not believe it when her son brought home his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[7,23,131,133,132,137,741],"class_list":["post-202627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-california","tag-local-news","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-los-angeles-county","tag-rich-archbold-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}