In conjunction with the 17th annual Kachemak Bay Writers’ Conference, visiting faculty present readings this weekend, June 9 to 11. Sixteen nationally-recognized visiting and Alaska novelists, essayists and poets will read from their work each evening.

Leading off the weekend is a reading by Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Anthony Doerr at 8 p.m. Saturday at the Mariner Theatre. Author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” Doerr also will sign books after the reading.

At 7:30 p.m. Sunday at Alice Champagne Palace, reading are Nancy Lord, Jean Hegland, Floyd Skloot, Erin Coughlin Hollowell, Joe Wilkins and Barbara Hurd.

At 7:30 p.m. Monday at Land’s End Resort, reading are Rick Barot, Jean Anderson, Rich Chiappone, Diane Glancy and Bryan Allen Fierro. Fairbanks poet Peggy Shumaker was originally scheduled to read, but had to cancel and will not attend the conference.

Ernestine Hayes had been scheduled to read, as well as perform the closing address, but had to cancel because of a fire at her historic family home in Juneau. Writer and Unangan leader Ilarion “Larry” Merculieff will present the closing talk.

Biographical information of the literary artists can be viewed at http://writersconference.homer.alaska.edu

All readings are open to the public with support from Alaska Airlines, Alaska State Council of the Arts, First National Bank Alaska, Caroline Musgrove Coons Endowment, The Atwood Foundation, University of Alaska, Homer Bookstore, Homer News, KBBI, Usibelli Foundation, University of Alaska Anchorage, Kachemak Bay Campus-Kenai Peninsula College, as well as many individual donors.