Giving women a voice in literature by Melissa Evans

What do you want to be when you grow up? I was quick to raise my hand many years ago at a high school career day event: A novelist.

And I expected this career to be mine immediately upon graduation, because, why not? I was humble about it; I probably wouldn’t make the top 10 of any best-seller lists right away. So in college, I started writing for the school paper, figuring a bit of practice couldn’t hurt.

Twenty years later, I am still addicted to seeing my named in newsprint, but that adolescent stirring remains. I go to the drugstore sometimes and buy a new pen (must be a ballpoint) and new notebook (college ruled) and start brainstorming and outlining.

Because of that, I know this to be true: writing is hard.

Thankfully there are many women out there who have succeeded in the difficult, tedious and often lonely task of literature, and on Saturday, I got to hang out with a few of them – and about 800 of their fans.

The Literary Women book festival, held at the Long Beach Convention Center this weekend, began in 1982. Harriet Williams, who died in October, and Virginia Laddey, wanted to do something about the lack of female authors on reading lists of local high schools. So they decided to create a festival featuring women authors.

The event now sells out every year, months in advance.

One of this year’s authors, Roxanne Gay, made headlines in January after pulling her book “How to Be Heard” from Simon & Schuster after the publisher signed the alt-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos to a six-figure book deal.

Despite the bold move – which she told Saturday’s audience was fraught with fear of consequences – Gay, author of “Bad Feminist,” “Difficult Women” and other books, described her early doubt that anyone would find her books worth reading.

“I’ve been intimidated my whole life,” she said. Writing is indeed a tough world, navigating between creativity and bottom lines, obsessiveness with reviews and author ranking on Amazon, and now with the inability to say “no” to a demanding schedule (she’s on tour from January to August).

Other writers included Jill Leovy, a Los Angeles Times reporter and author of “Ghettoside,” which details the story of black on black violence in South Central Los Angeles.

She, too, made reference to the current political climate in discussing how hard it is to write facts – especially facts about violence, a subject she said is “mostly lied about.”

“Being factual is not easy,” she said, but getting the story right is “nothing to be taken for granted.”

Other authors included Mia Alvar, “In The Country;” Nadia Hashimi, “When The Moon Is Low;” Lily King, “Euphoria;” Idra Novey, “Ways to Disappear;” Cathleen Schine, “They May Not Mean To, But They Do.”

The event also promotes local, young and upcoming writers. This year’s emerging writers included Idalith Bustos (Cal State Long Beach), Amy Valenzuela-Mier (Long Beach City College) and Rebecca Pincolini (Cal State Long Beach).

Much of the annual conference focuses how to encourage young women to find their voice in literature.

Gay offered this advice: “Be persistent. Have faith in what you have to say.”

City editor Melissa Evans can be reached at melissa.evans@langnews.com.

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