The 27th Napa Valley Writers’ Conference begins this weekend and continues through Aug. 2.

As part of the conference, the faculty present readings and lectures that are open to the public. The lectures are $25 each and take place at the Upper Valley Campus of Napa Valley College, 1088 College Ave., St. Helena. Readings, $10, include wine tastings and are held at venues around the valley. High school students may attend the events without charge. Tickets may be purchased at the door or in advance by calling 967-2900 ext. 1611 or -mail writecon@napavalley.edu

Here’s the schedule of events:

Sunday, July 29

7:30 p.m. — reading:

David St. John and  Christopher Tilghman; Upper Valley Campus, Napa Valley College

St. John is the author of nine books of poetry, most recently “The Face: A Novella in Verse.” Other collections include “Prism,” “The Red Leaves of Night,” “In the Pines: Lost Poems 1972-1997” and “Study for the World’s Body: New and Selected Poems,” a finalist for the National Book Award. He is professor of English at the University of Southern California.

Tilghman is the author of the novels “Roads of the Heart” and “Mason’s Retreat” and of two story collections, “The Way People Run” and “In a Father’s Place,” which was called “the debut of the year” by the New York Times. His stories have appeared in Best American Stories, the New Yorker and in other magazines. He is a tenured professor at the University of Virginia, where he teaches creative writing. This is his seventh appearance at the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference.

Monday, July 30

9 a.m. — lecture:

Stephen Dunn: “Some Virtues of Avoidance: Other Thoughts About Craft”

Dunn is the author of 14 collections of poetry, including “Different Hours,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2001, and “Loosestrife,” a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist in 1996. A new book of poems, “Everything Else in the World,” was issued by W.W. Norton in September 2006. Other books include “New & Selected Poems: 1974-1994,” “Landscape at the End of the Century,” “Between Angels, Riffs & Reciprocities: Prose Pairs” and “Walking Light: Memoirs and Essays on Poetry.” He is distinguished professor of creative writing at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.

1:30 p.m. — lecture:

Laura Kasischke  “What Doesn’t Kill You: On the Writing of a Novel”

Kasischke has published four novels, most recently “Be Mine.” Her novel, “The Life Before Her Eyes,” is presently being produced as a feature film starring Uma Thurman. She has also published a novel for young adults. She has published work in Harper’s, the New Republic, the Iowa Review, and Ploughshares.

She is also the author of five books of poetry, most recently “Dance and Disappear.” She teaches at the University of Michigan.

7:30 p.m. wine Reception; 8 p.m. reading:

 Jane Hirshfield and Antonya Nelson; Robert Mondavi Winery, Oakville.

Jane Hirshfield is the author of six collections of poetry, including “After” (which was shortlisted for England’s T.S. Eliot Prize and also chosen as one of the best books of 2006 by both the Washington Post and the London Financial Times); “Given Sugar, Given Salt,”  “The Lives of the Heart” and “The October Palace,” as well as a book of essays, “Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry.”

She also edited and co-translated “The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Komachi & Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan,” “Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women” and “Mirabai: Ecstatic Poems.”

Nelson is the author of five story collections, including “Some Fun,” and three novels, “Talking in Bed,” “Nobody’s Girl” and “Living to Tell.”

Her work has appeared in the New Yorker and in Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. The New Yorker named her one of the “20 young fiction writers for the new millennium.”

Tuesday, July 31

9 a.m. — lecture: David St. John: “Poetic Aperture in Contemporary Poetry”

1:30 p.m. — lecture: Christopher Tilghman: “How Does a Story Think?”

7:30 p.m. wine reception; 8 p.m. reading:

 Elizabeth Alexander and Robert Boswell; Rubicon Winery, Rutherford.

Alexander’s most recent collection of poems, “American Sublime,” was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize. Her other books of poetry are “Antebellum Dream Book,” “Body of Life” and “The Venus Hottentot.” Also a scholar of African-American literature and culture, she has published a book of essays, “The Black Interior.”

Alexander is the inaugural recipient of the Jackson Poetry Prize, which honors an American poet of exceptional talent who has published at least one book of recognized literary merit but has not yet received major national acclaim.

Her short stories and critical prose have been widely published in such periodicals and journals as Signs, the Paris Review, American Poetry Review, the Kenyon Review, the Village Voice, the Women’s Review of Books and the Washington Post, and her poems are widely anthologized.

Among her many honors and awards is the Alphonse Fletcher, Sr. Fellowship for work that “contributes to improving race relations in American society and furthers the broad social goals of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.” Formerly the Grace Hazard Conkling poet-in-residence and first director of the Poetry Center at Smith College, she is currently professor of African-American Studies at Yale University.

Boswell is the author of seven works of fiction including “Century’s Son” and “Mystery Ride,” a cyberpunk novel “Virtual Death,” a prize-winning play, “Tongues,” and a forthcoming book of essays on writing, “The Half-Known World.” His stories appear in Esquire, New Yorker, Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories, Pushcart Prize Stories and in many literary magazines. He teaches at New Mexico State University, the University of Houston, and in the Warren Wilson MFA Program.

Wednesday, Aug. 1

9 a.m. — lecture: Jane Hirshfield: “Close Reading/Windows”

1:30 p.m. — lecture: Antonya Nelson

7 p.m. wine reception; 7:30 p.m. reading:

Stephen Dunn & Laura Kasischke; Napa Valley Opera House, 1000 Main St., Napa. Wine reception hosted by Saintsbury Winery

Thursday, Aug. 2

9 a.m. — lecture: Elizabeth Alexander

1:30 p.m. — lecture: Robert Boswell: “Process & Paradigm”