The annual Saints and Sinners literary conference, held in New Orleans each year as a fundraiser for NOAIDS, begins next Thursday.  The conference runs from May 8-11. Headquarters is the Bourbon Orleans hotel. Headliners this year include Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Jim Grimsley, Greg Herren, Marianne K. Martin, Cynn Chadwick, and many others. Go to www.sasfest.org for a full list of authors, editors, and publishers who will be there, and the schedule of events which include a play, Friday master's classes, a weekend of workshops and panels, an opening reception and a closing reception at which the winner of the annual Bywater prize for fiction will be announced. The Olivier hotel on Toulouse street offers a discount for those attending the conference.