Barrie North Collegiate in Barrie is gearing up to play host to some of Canada’s best authors at the L3 Writers Conference.

This will be the first time for the event, which teacher organizer Brian Adduono is calling the largest high school writers conference in Ontario.

“We have almost 30 presenters coming,” Adduono said. “And it’s all in one day. We have some real heavyweight award winners as well.”

Among the authors taking part in the May 22 conference are Austin Clarke, Joy Kogawa, Bruce Meyer and Eric Walters.

Adduono called the event a creative way to support literacy and creative writing.

“I think it is extremely important for young people to put a face to writers, novelists, journalists, poets, because they only see their name on the book and it would be really nice if they humanized that.”

He said it also allows students to see writing as a possible career path.

The conference will kick off at 9 a.m. with a keynote address from William Bell and Ting-xing Ye.

Throughout the day, students from Simcoe County District School Board and Simcoe Muskoka Catholic District School Board can attend a number of workshops with the authors.

“William Bell, Ting-xing Ye and Eric Walters are probably the No. 1 young adult fiction writers in Canada,” said Adduono. “It’s just amazing that the timing was right.”

At 7 p.m. the conference opens its doors to the public for an evening program.

“We really think the evening event targets everybody,” Adduono said. “Because Eric Walters covers Grade 5 to adult so we can have all kinds of elementary kids for that, and their parents, and their friends, and anyone interested in books and book culture.”

The conference is being organized by students in North’s iDeology program.

The iDeology program allows Grade 12 students to earn an English credit, writer’s craft credit and philosophy credit.

The L3 Conference will run in conjunction with North’s art’s celebration Art Beats.

Events featuring the school’s visual, dramatic and music art talent will be on display in the school’s cafeteria while the evening session takes place in the gym.

“It should be a real splashy celebration of all the artistic stuff happening at our school,” said Adduono.

Students can sign up for the L3 Conference through their own school.

Space is limited to 300 students so be sure to sign up soon.

Tickets for the evening session are available at Barrie North Collegiate, at Page & Turners Independent Bookstore and at the door.

For more information, call Barrie North Collegiate at 726-6541.