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21st Annual Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival

MARCH 28 - 30, 2025

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SASFest 2024 was magical! Thanks to everyone who made the weekend so incredible, and we'll see you next year: March 28 - 30, 2025!

Check out our full color SASFest 2024 Program Book

Includes our full 2024 schedule of events, including writer's craft sessions, literary discussion panels, author readings, and evening events.

Click on the cover image for the FULL COLOR PDF version.

Prefer a full spread FLIPBOOK version? CLICK HERE.

Want a text-only version you can print so you can focus on planning your best SASFest experience? Get those highlighters ready and CLICK HERE.

And be sure to watch our 2024 Showreel below, brought to us by our friends at The Bend Media.

Looking for TWFest - the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival? Click Here!

2025 SASFest Registration

Missed our Summer Sale? No worries! SAS25 Registration is on sale NOW for $175 from October 1 - December 31. Register now before our Early Bird sale ends!

Standard Registration admits you to all events at our 2025 Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival, March 28 – 30. including:

Welcome Party, SASFest Short Fiction Book Launch, & Closing Reception, which includes the launch of the Poetry Anthology, the Emerging Writer Award Winner, and induction of the newest SAS Hall of Fame class.
Reading Series – readings of new work by a variety of writers, from debut authors to award-winning authors.
Literary Panel Discussions – panel discussions led by writers, editors, publishers, and agents on a variety of topics important to the LGBTQ+ community.
Writer’s Craft Sessions – workshops taught by successful authors, publishers, and other literary professionals.

We are so excited to continue our partnership with the Literary Landmark Hotel Monteleone.

We have a limited block of rooms reserved, and as you know, March is a hot season for tourists in New Orleans so rooms fill up QUICKLY. We HIGHLY recommend booking your room ASAP to ensure availability.

CLICK HERE to reserve.

You can cancel your reservation at no penalty as long as you cancel at least 72 hours before your arrival date.

Note that if you're planning an early arrival or extended stay outside the Festival dates, you should call the hotel directly at 504-523-3341 to book rather than booking online. Be sure to ask for the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival block rate, as SASFest is a program of TWFest.

Donate to SASFest to help us sustain our mission to promote and support LGBTQ+ writers, publishers, editors, agents, and other literary professionals. Your donation is tax deductible, and you're helping us provide a gathering place each spring where the queer literary community can network, share their work, discuss topics important to the LGBTQ+ community, offer literary advice to emerging writers, and encourage one another to continue writing and publishing.

DONATE

SAINTS & SINNERS SHORT FICTION CONTEST RE-OPENS MAY 1, 2025

Thanks to all who entered! Our 2024 fiction winner will be selected from submissions of original, unpublished short stories between 3,000 and 7,000 words with LGBTQ+ content on the broad theme of “Saints and Sinners.”

This contest would not be possible without a generous grant from The John Burton Harter Foundation.

Thanks to Greg Herren (pictured) who will serve as this year’s judge. More about Greg HERE.

2025 WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED IN LATE FEBRUARY/EARLY MARCH, 2025.

2024 WINNER, RUNNERS-UP, and FINALISTS HERE.

See full details on contest guidelines, eligibility, and prizes HERE.

SAINTS & SINNERS POETRY CONTEST RE-OPENS MAY 1, 2025

Thanks to all who entered! Our poetry winner will be selected from submissions of original unpublished poems by LGBTQ+ writers.

Thanks to Nikki Ummel (pictured) who will serve as this year’s judge.

More about Nikki HERE.

2025 WINNERS TO BE ANNOUNCED IN LATE FEBRUARY/EARLY MARCH, 2025.

2024 WINNER, RUNNERS-UP, AND FINALISTS HERE

See full details on contest guidelines, eligibility, and prizes HERE.

About the Festival—now in our 22nd year!

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.

A program of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival, 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.

PRESS INFO

Did you cover SASFest 2024? Be sure to send us links to your coverage.

Contact our publicist, Reine Dugas, at press@tennesseewilliams.net for more details about covering SASFest 2025, March 28 - 30.

Thoughts on the Festival

“Saints & Sinners is hands down one of the best places to go to revive a writer’s spirit. Imagine a gathering in which you can lean into conversations with some of the best writers and editors and publishers in the country, all of them speaking frankly and passionately about the books, stories and people they love and hate and want most to record in some indelible way. Imagine a community that tells you truthfully what is happening with writing and publishing in the world you most want to reach. Imagine the flirting, the arguing, the teasing and praising and exchanging of not just vital information, but the whole spirit of queer arts and creation. Then imagine it all taking place on the sultry streets of New Orleans’ French Quarter. That’s Saints & Sinners—the best wellspring of inspiration and enthusiasm you are going to find. Go there.”

The Festival 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.

—Dorothy Allison, National Book Award finalist for Bastard Out of Carolina, and author of the critically acclaimed novel Cavedweller

Become a Festival Member

Your SASFest membership helps to:

Promote and support LGBTQ+ writers and other literary professionals
Provide a platform for the LGBTQ+ literary community
Connect readers and their favorite LGBTQ+ writers
Nurture up-and-coming LGBTQ+ literary talent
Support programming dedicated to educating and uplifting the LGBTQ+ community

Memberships start at just $25 with benefits including recognition, SAS tote bags, Fest registration, and other event passes. Join now to support the 22nd annual Saints & Sinners, coming March 28 - 30, 2025.

Many thanks to our 2024 SASFest members and donors:

Join Now

Guardian Angel, $1,500 and above

Rob Byrnes

Louis Flint Ceci/Beautiful Dreamer Press

Keith Fox and Tom Keyes

John Burton Harter Foundation/Premier Sponsor

Bruce J. Heim Foundation

The Helis Foundation

LGBTQ Fund, Greater New Orleans Foundation

Sinner, $500

Jonathan Alexander

Marco Carocari

Timothy Cummings

Sven Davisson/Rebel Satori Press

Julie R. Enszer/Sinister Wisdom

Alexander Inglis/ReQueered Tales

Susan Laron/Pinckley Prizes

Frank Perez

The Publishing Triangle

Saint, $300

Amie M. Evans

Jameson Currier/Chelsea Station Editions

Matthew Clark Davison

Ian Henzel/Rattling Good Yarns Press

Carol Rosenfeld

David Swatling

Devil, $75

T.J. Fury

Gregory Gajus

Greg Herren

Kathy Higgins

Scott Jakubowski

Michele Kaminski

Thomas Keith

Ed Madden

Reed Waller

Dan White—OutWithDan

Cherub, $25

Linda Boyer

Beau Bratcher

Lawrence Henry Gobble

Stephen Joseph Wolf

2024 SAS Festival Donations

LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana

Salem West/Bywater Books

Thank you to our Give Out Day donors, May 2024:

Eric Andrews-Katz

Rob Byrnes

John Copenhaver

Tracy Cunningham

Jameson Currier

Brenda Currin, in memory of Susan Rice

Clayton Delery

Lewis DeSimone

Alfred Doblin

Margot Douaihy

Reine Dugas

Lawrence Henry Gobble

Kathy J. Higgins

Michele Karlsberg

Judith Katz

Peggy Scott Laborde

James Pauley

David Pratt

Carol Rosenfeld

Gar Russell

Paul Willis

Sara Woodard

Thanks to our Sponsors

We appreciate the generosity of our sponsors who make it possible to host our writer's craft sessions, literary panel discussions, author readings, book launches, and awards ceremony. If you'd like to become a sponsor or purchase an ad in our program book, contact us at info@tennesseewilliams.net. You can also make a donation HERE.