21st Annual Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival
$35.00 – $200.00
at
New Orleans, LA
More Info / Registration
The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival was founded in 2003 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 LGBTQ+ community. It was also formed to bring the LGBTQ+ literary community together to celebrate the literary arts.
SASFest has grown into an internationally-recognized event that brings together a who’s who of LGBTQ+ publishers, writers and readers from throughout the United States and beyond. The Festival, held over 3 days each spring at the Hotel Monteleone in the New Orleans French Quarter, features 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 LGBTQ+ literature.
Jay will be part of a panel discussing the art and craft of the short story collection. What are the challenges in writing short fiction, and why do writers choose the form – over a novel for instance? How do we address the issues of succinctness and/or conciseness in crafting characters and conflicts which can express themselves fully in the short story form? There is the question as well of intensity, and perhaps this best describes the queer short story with its essential or urgent message, concerning characters who are often outsiders and facing obstacles or dilemmas that don’t exist in the heteronormative genre of short fiction. In this panel, four writers with recently published collections will discuss and offer insight on their experience and thoughts on the short form: Jarrod Campbell, Jay Michaelson, SJ Sindu, and Jerry L. Wheeler.
