For Pasadena readers who brunch

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The third annual Pasadena Festival of Women Authors is coming April 2. The event takes place from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and benefits the nonprofit Pasadena Senior Center.

Authors appearing at the event are:

Marianne Wiggins. Her 2003 novel, ‘Evidence of Things Unseen,’ was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her eighth novel, ‘The Shadow Catcher’ (2007), is partially about the photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis -- and partly about a writer named Marianne Wiggins. She teaches at USC.

Naomi Hirahara is an Edgar Award-winning mystery author and the former editor of the Southern California Japanese-English newspaper the Rafu Shimpo. Born in Pasadena, she has written a number of books about Japanese Americans in Southern California; the latest in her Mas Arai mystery series is 2010’s ‘Blood Hina.’

Attica Locke‘s debut novel, ‘Black Water Rising,’ has recieved many accolades: It was nominated for an Edgar Award and an NAACP Image Award, and was a finalist for the Orange Prize and the L.A. Times mystery/thriller book prize.

Maile Meloy. Her short-story collection ‘Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It’ was one of the New York Times’ 10 best books of 2009 and named one of the L.A. Times’ favorite books of the year. She has been awarded the Paris Review’s Aga Khan Prize for fiction and was named one of the Best Young American Novelists by Granta in 2007, among her other honors.

All four authors live in Southern California. Tickets to the event, which is held at the Pasadena Senior Center, are $80 and include lunch and book signings (books will be available for purchase). The Pasadena Festival of Women Authors made donations to the Pasadena Senior Center of $15,000 in 2009 and $20,000 in 2010.

-- Carolyn Kellogg