Natchez — The 20th annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration opens at 9 a.m. today at the Natchez Convention Center.

The theme is, “Southern Women Writers: Saluting the Eudora Welty Centennial.”

Hundreds of people are expected to attend the four-day conference, which includes two dozen lectures and panel discussions, films, writing workshops and the play, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

The keynote address will be presented at 11 a.m. today by Suzanne Marrs of Millsaps College, author of “Eudora Welty: A Biography” and “One Writers’ imagination: The Fiction of Eudora Welty.”

The conference is free except for meals and the play.

It is sponsored by Copiah-Lincoln Community College, Natchez National Historical Park, Mississippi Department of Archives and History and Mississippi Public Broadcasting.

For a complete schedule of events, see an insert in today’s Democrat.