The 44th Annual Writers Conference, "A Portrait of an Artist" will run March 19-23.

Each year, literature lovers from all over North Dakota and beyond attend this event to listen to panel discussions, readings and ask questions of internationally prominent authors.

The lineup for this year's authors and artists include Cheryl Strayed, Nick Flynn, Ed Bok Lee, Dorothy Allison, Gary Shteyngart, Mary Jo Bang and Richard Bausch, as well as two-time Oscar nominee and Pulitzer Prize winner Tony Kushner.

Each authors will give a public reading during the Conference with time reserved for audience members to pose questions, with a book signing to follow. These readings take place at 4p.m. and 8 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, primarily in the UND Memorial Ballroom. At 8p.m., on Friday, at the Chester Fritz Auditorium, the UND Writers Conference will feature "A Conversation with Tony Kushner" moderated by Jack Russell Weinstein, director of the UND Institute for Philosophy in Public Life and the host of Prairie Public's popular WHY? Radio show.

In addition to readings, the Conference includes three panel discussions, where a group of Conference authors answer questions posed by the moderator and those submitted by the audience. Also, this year, the UND Theatre Arts Department will stage two Tony Kushner plays on Saturday night, March 23. A complete schedule is available athttp://www.undwritersconference.org/wc-schedule.htm.

All sessions are free to attend and open to the public.

Cheryl Strayed

Revealed as the voice behind the TheRumpus.net's beloved "Dear Sugar" column, Strayed has been hailed by The New Republic as "the ultimate advice columnist for the Internet age. Strayed is the author of the acclaimed memoir, Wild, which is the inaugural selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. Strayed is also the author of the critically acclaimed novel Torch, a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award. Her stories and essays have been published in The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, Allure, and The Best American Essays. She holds an MFA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and a bachelor's degree from the University of Minnesota. She's a founding member of VIDA: Women In Literary Arts, and serves on their board of directors.