The general theme of this column is “anything I find interesting,” and lately that’s been local book festivals, because they keep making the news. I first wrote about a Baltimore event that didn’t go so well, then about one created as a reaction to it.

Now we’re highlighting a different, long-standing festival that’s marking its sixth and final year as a celebration of female writers, a topic I’m obviously fascinated with as an author myself. Though Bowie’s Write Woman Book Fest is ending in its current big-tent iteration on July 19 at the Bowie Comfort Inn and Conference Center and July 20 at the South Bowie Public Library, its founders say they’ll never stop supporting fellow literary ladies.

“We’re connecting people who need to be connected and helping them on their publishing path,” said founder and author Heather Brooks. “We have a mentoring spirit. We learn from these authors as much as they learn from us.”

She and outreach director Cardyn Brooks have the same last name, related not by blood or law but by their love of writing and writers. Both said their decision to end the festival is simply about practicality. “You’re looking at our entire team,” Cardyn said during our Zoom chat with Heather.

Though the event also relied on “some lovely volunteers,” Heather said that it’s simply harder to get attention for an event that is not genre-specific. Given the current political and economic realities of the country, and specifically the DMV, where many federal employees live, “it makes it a little harder.”

But they’re going out with a bang and some fun, including drag queen and firefighter story times, live poetry and a mini literary salon. The roots of the festival came from an all-female literary salon that Heather, who calls herself “a lemons-to-lemonade person,” started specifically to support and network with other women writers. Why? “Women authors face obstacles that men don’t,” she said.

She said those obstacles include male readers who refuse to engage with books written by women and the fact that “writing, if it’s not your full-time job, is not taken as seriously in the family unit.”

“Think about how many women who are wives and mothers can’t even go to the bathroom in peace, much less write,” Cardyn added. As an author who constructed writing her first book around my then-preschooler’s sleep schedule, I felt that deeply.

Cardyn was one of the attendees of that inaugural salon and never left. She writes erotica about Black and brown people of privilege. “I wasn’t seeing everyday Black people in love and not in trauma,” she said. “I wanted to write something I wanted to read.”

The love of writing and writers compels the Brookses, and they are proud of how the event has grown. Their first festival in 2019 featured 38 authors, and this year, they expect 120. It’s not hard to believe this crew is good at hyping up other creators — just look at the way they compliment each other. “Heather’s too modest to sing her own praises, but the main reason we’ve grown is that Heather does the work of three or four people,” Cardyn said.

Because of their experience and understanding of how hard it is to create and run such an event, both have sympathy for Grace Willows, the creator of Baltimore’s now-infamous A Million Lives Book Festival, which failed to deliver on several promises back in May. “My first impression was that she got in over her head,” Heather said. “We know how much work it is.”

Cardyn and Heather feel good about the strides their creation has made, citing local Jane Austen-inspired writer Eden Appiah-Kubi, whose first-ever book event was the Write Woman festival. They’re also involved with The Next Bestseller, a Laurel-based competition that’s like “American Idol” meets a bookstore.

And this is not their last literary hurrah. Both Brookeses say they plan to go back to hosting smaller events.

“We hope it makes the same connections our previous event has done. This was a good thing,” Heather said. “We’re so glad to be here in each other’s orbit.”