Programs by Genre
Children’s and Young Adult Literature
Readings and Book Talks
Alex Beard, The Jungle Grapevine
Johnette Downing, Why the Crawfish Lives in the Mud
M. H. Herlong, The Great Wide Sea
Kerry Madden, Up Close: Harper Lee
Paula Morris, Ruined: A Ghost Story
Lois Ruby, The Secret of Laurel Oaks
Kathy Whitehead, Art from Her Heart: Folk Artist Clementine Hunter
Performance
Louisiana Young Readers’ Choice Program
with Rick Kelley’s Walk in My Shoes
The Hobbit
Playmakers of Baton Rouge Youth Company
This beloved fantasy is the story of young Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, who is whisked from his comfortable home to help recover a treasure from the fearsome dragon, Smaug. Along the way, he unwittingly discovers the powerful ring that will change the course of Middle Earth forever. Through the course of his adventure Bilbo meets many interesting characters including wizards, dwarves and elves. Follow the daring adventures of Bilbo Baggins in this fast-paced tale as he faces trolls and goblins and outwits the riddle-loving Gollum. Appropriate for ages 6 and up.
Demonstration
A Day at the 4 Seasons
Roosevelt Pitt, Jr.
Roosevelt Pitts, Jr. is the author and co-creator of Food Adventures with Charles the Chef, a book created to help children develop good eating habits early. Join him in the Cooking Demonstration Tent where he will explain the benefits of healthy eating and show the kids how to make their own fruit smoothie.
Discussions
Uncle Arnel's Swamp Critters Fun Facts
Alison Lane
Through PowerPoint, Alison will share fun facts about the “swamp critters” featured in Uncle Arnel and the Swamp Witch, including egrets, nutria, raccoons and alligators.
Where The Action Is: Three Authors Talk About Some Serious Adventures in Their Debut Middle Grade and Young Adult Novels.
Donna St. Cyr, The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate
Joy Preble, Dreaming Anastasia: A Novel of Love, Magic, and the Power of Dreams
and Fran Cannon Slayton, When the Whistle Blows
Cultural Studies
Readings and Book Talks
Jason Berry, Rebirth Jazz Book: Revised and Updated Release of a New Orleans Classic,
Up From the Cradle of Jazz
Peggy Scott LaBorde and John Magill, Christmas in New Orleans
Discussions
Accordion Dreams: My Outside-In Journey into Cajun and Creole Music
Blair Kilpatrick, Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music
with Herman Fuselier
In conversation with journalist Herman Fuselier, author Blair Kilpatrick (formerly a shy midwesterner) talks about her life-changing discovery of Louisiana French music. She'll also bring her Cajun accordion, so don't forget your dancing shoes!
Artist at Work: Louisiana Folk Artist Lorraine Gendron
Nancy Wilson, Lorraine Gendron: Louisiana Folk Artist
and Lorraine Gendron
Author Nancy Wilson and folk artist Lorraine Gendron present a visual narrative and demo presentation. Gendron’s painting, “Louisiana Book Festival,” graces the cover of the 2009 festival program and promotional materials.
Cajun and Zydeco Music in Northern California
Mark F. DeWitt, Cajun and Zydeco Dance Music in Northern California:
Modern Pleasures in a Postmodern World
with Kevin Fontenot
A look at how the San Francisco Bay Area region of California has been able to develop and sustain more than a dozen Cajun bands and several dances a week.
The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Agriculture & Industry, Gender and Music
Ted Ownby, Nick Spitzer and Melissa Walker
with Charles Reagan Wilson, moderator
Panelists focus on the South’s contributions to agriculture and industry, gender, and music.
Feel These Words: Writing in the Lives of Urban Youth
Susan Weinstein
with Chancelier “xero” Skidmore
Building on curricula such as the Big Buddy Program’s WordPlay Teen Writing Project, author Susan Weinstein and poet Chancelier “xero” Skidmore discuss ways in which educators can focus not simply on what they believe kids need to be taught, but also on what makes them want to learn.
Hoodoo, Voodoo and Conjure in Literature and Culture
Jeffrey E. Anderson, Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Conjure: A Handbook
Hoodoo, Voodoo--the words conjure up visions of midnight orgies, pin-filled dolls, and cauldrons of witch's brew. The stereotypes surprise no one who understands the motives of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century authors whose works still shape popular culture. The reality, however, is far more complex than these caricatures, but no less intriguing.
Fiction and Literature
Ceremony
Louisiana Writer Award Ceremony
Honoring Tim Gautreaux
with Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu
Rebecca Hamilton, Presiding
Readings and Book Talks
Andrea Boll, The Parade Goes On without You
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage
Maria Hebert-Leiter, Becoming Cajun, Becoming American
Robert Hicks, Resurrecting the Dead 101: A Separate Country
Ernest Hill, Satisfied with Nothin’
Skip Horack, The Southern Cross
J. Gerald Kennedy, Reading Poe in an “Age of Terror”
Tom Piazza, City of Refuge
John Pipkin, “I once set fire to the woods…and I was the only one there to enjoy it.”
Woodsburner: A novel of Henry David Thoreau's Forgotten Forest Fire
Kevin Wilson, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth
Discussions and Readings
California Routes and Louisiana Roots:
Short Stories of Louisiana
Dixon Hearne, Plantatia: High-toned and Low-down Stories of the South
and Angus Woodward, Down at the End of the River
Country Roads Regional Writing
Jan Chabreck, “Growing Dim”
Andreé Cosby, “I’m Your Man”
Morgy Fugarino, “Not the Same”
Darryl Holmes, “A Lunker Legend”
and Jim Spring, “Nectar and Ambrosia in the High Himalayas”
with Moira Crone and James Fox-Smith
Join publisher James Fox-Smith and author Moira Crone as they converse with the winners of the Country Roads 2009 Regional Writing Competition.
Crash! Bang! Boom!
Fireworks Celebrate the Occasion of the Eudora Welty Centennial
Pearl Amelia McHaney, Occasions: Selected Writings
with Brannon Costello
Little-known and never collected tributes, essays, stories, poems, newspaper articles, prefaces and recipes written by Welty over her 60-year career are gathered in Occasions: Selected Writings, edited by Pearl Amelia McHaney. The delightful Welty wit, sensitivity and imagination throughout the collection are no surprise. The editor discusses the collection and Welty’s work with LSU scholar Brannon Costello.
Made possible in part through a donation from Michael D. Robinson
Dorothy Dix: The World Brought Her Its Secrets
Christina Vella
In her time, Dorothy Dix was Louisiana's most famous writer. Her lovelorn advice column, syndicated from New Orleans (1896-1951), reached around the world. In the Far East she was mobbed by well-wishers; in Australia her picture was on the sides of buses. Hilarious, level-headed and compassionate, she set the model for all the sharp-tongued newspaper counselors who followed. The millions throughout the world who turned to her daily advice column in their newspapers had no idea that she lived in New Orleans, not in their own towns.
Ernest J. Gaines: Still Driven by That “Louisiana Thing"
Ernest J. Gaines, Marcia Gaudet, Wiley Cash, and Reggie Scott Young
Acclaimed author Ernest J. Gaines talks about the things that drive him to write fiction. He will discuss his work with Reggie Scott Young, Marcia Gaudet and Wiley Cash--the authors of the new book "This Louisiana Thing That Drives Me": The Legacy of Ernest J. Gaines.
The Fiction of Laughter: What Makes a Novel a Comedy?
Michael Malone, The Four Corners of the Sky
Michael Malone talks about and reads from his "comic romances," The Four Corners of the Sky, Foolscap and Handling Sin.
Found in Translation: An En Face Discussion
Burton Raffel, Canterbury Tales (translator)
and James Nolan, Stones of the Sky (translator)
Who are you really reading in a translation, the author or the translator? And who are these mysterious two-headed writers called translators, working in dual languages at the same time? How do they do it? Accomplished translators Burton Raffel and James Nolan address the fascinating art of translation, discussing the practices, difficulties and joys of recreating a work of literature in another language.
The French Quarter Connection
Wally Lamb, The Hour I First Believed
Wally Lamb's third novel, The Hour I First Believed, explores chaos theory by interfacing several generations of a fictional family with nonfictional American events such as the Civil War, Boston's Coconut Grove nightclub fire, the Columbine shootings, and Hurricane Katrina. Lamb will explain how and why the novel, ten years in the making, owes its genesis to a visit he made to New Orleans's cavernous St. Louis Cathedral and how and why his Connecticut-born sons became Louisiana residents during the writing of the story.
“like tap dancing or jitterbugging . . . either you got it or you ain’t”:
Introducing the Fiction of Tim Gautreaux (who’s got it)
Margaret Bauer and Tim Gautreaux
A conversation between the 2009 Louisiana Writer Award recipient and the author of the forthcoming Understanding Tim Gautreaux.
More of This World or Maybe Another: Stories
Barb Johnson
with Michael Murphy
Join Barb Johnson and her agent, Michael Murphy, for a discussion of her debut collection of award-winning short stories set in Mid-City, New Orleans, where people know how to solve their problems. Need a clean shirt? Rinse it in the sink and give it a quick dry in the microwave. Need to start over in life? Break into your wealthy neighbor’s home and become his roommate. Mother’s boyfriend won’t let you have a confirmation party? Drop a fistful of Vicodin in his drink. These and other tips will be discussed.
New Stories from the South 2009
Juyanne James, Kevin Wilson, and Geoff Wyss
with Kathy Pories, moderator
One Book, One Festival: Same Place, Same Things
Gary Richards
Resurrecting the Dead 101
Robert Hicks, A Separate Country
In his new novel, A Separate Country, Robert Hicks has resurrected the final days of Confederate General John Bell Hood; his extraordinary wife, Anna Marie; and a host of other New Orleans citizens struggling to come terms with a post-Civil War era as the terrible devastation of Yellow Plague bears down upon them. In the words of one reviewer, “Hicks's stunning narrative volleys between Hood, Anna Marie and Eli, each offering variety and texture to a story saturated in Southern gallantry and rich American history.”
Rhythm and Prose:
A Semi-Musical Journey into the Art of Fiction Writing
Louis Maistros, The Sound of Building Coffins
At this event author Louis Maistros will incorporate guitar and voice to illustrate the connections between music and prose as it relates to his historical jazz novel, The Sound of Building Coffins.
Second Sluthood: A Manifesto for the Postmenopausal, Pre-Senilic Matriarch
Ruby Pearl Saffire
with Suzanne Hudson
Author Suzanne Hudson examines the elusive Ruby Pearl Saffire’s fictional nonfiction: lines inspired by hysterectomies, ex-lovers and other road kill; good humored vitriol directed at straying spouses; edgy social commentary; the Twenty-Seven Tenants; and the praises of prancing shamelessly into one’s pre-geriatric years.
Sonny, the Widow, and the Tree
Sonny Brewer, The Widow and the Tree
Sonny Brewer talks about writing and his new novel, The Widow and the Tree.Included among Library Journal review editors’ Great Discoveries from this year's Book Expo in New York and described as a "moody" novel, this fourth book from Sonny is at times dark and fable-istic, and at others deeply touching, or downright funny.
Southern Literature: Writing on Writing
Contributors to The Oxford American’s Current Issue
Rick Bragg, Barb Johnson, William Caverlee
and Reggie Scott Young
with Marc Smirnoff, moderator
The Southern Review:
2009 Literary Award Winners
Bonnie Jo Campbell and Edward Falco
with Beth Ann Fennelly and Jean Leiby, moderator
Troubled Girls, Lost Innocence
Two Debuts: One Urban, One Country
Kathryn Magendie, Tender Graces
and Chris Tusa, Dirty Little Angels
Why I Laugh at the P.O.: The Humor of Eudora Welty
Brannon Costello, John Lowe and James Wilcox
Words-in-Progress
Maggie Collins, Moira L. Crone and Jamey Hatley
with Amy Kirk Duvoisin, moderator
Performance
Page to Stage: A Monologue Performance of a Concord, Virginia Tale
Peter Neofotis
Peter Neofotis performs from memory a chapter from his southern gothic book, Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Eleven Stories (St. Martin's Press). Praised as "the seeming love child of Truman Capote and Eudora Welty...with the memorization skills of Vanessa Redgrave," (NYC's Next Magazine) Neofotis will deliver a delightful tale about an equestrienne who shoots her father.
Foodways
Book Talk
John Besh Talks Gumbo
John Besh, My New Orleans, the Cookbook:
200 of My Favorite Recipes & Stories from My Hometown
Louisiana native and world-class chef John Besh of New Orleans will discuss his brand-new cookbook, My New Orleans. Besh's award-winning cuisine springs from roots deep in the food culture of the place where he was born - and that of course includes gumbo. Besh talks about a chapter in the book called "Gumbo Weather," and about how cooking what you hunt in Louisiana requires some bravado and is taken very seriously. Besh and his duck-hunting buddies each have a different style of making gumbo; what's yours?
Discussion
Don't Call It a Gumbo: What Food Tells Us about Louisiana, beyond the Clichés
Marcelle Bienvenu, Cooking Up a Storm: New Orleans Recipes for Recovery
Dale Curry, New Orleans Home Cooking
and Poppy Tooker, Crescent City Farmer’s Market Cookbook
with Ian McNulty, moderator
People around the world will tell you Louisiana cooking is universally spicy hot. They'll use the terms Creole and Cajun interchangeably. And they're sure to draw a clear parallel between the Pelican State's diverse cultural elements and its most famous dish, gumbo. Of course, the truth about Louisiana cooking is much richer, complex and interesting than the watered-down maxims and clichés. Louisiana cookbook authors and food ambassadors Marcelle Bienvenu, Dale Curry and Poppy Tooker join moderator and New Orleans food writer Ian McNulty in a lively discussion about what the state's foodways tell us about its culture and history, what gives the food of its distinct regions such character and why the world should get a taste the real deal.
Demonstrations
Cooking in Cajun Country
Cheré Coen and Karl Breaux
Da Cajn Critter
Pamela D. Lyles
The Louisiana Seafood Bible: Shrimp
Jerald and Glenda Horst
New Orleans Classic Gumbos and Soups
Kit Wohl
History and Biography
Readings and Book Talks
Carol K. Haase, Louisiana’s Old State Capitol
Samuel C. Hyde, Jr., A Wisconsin Yankee in the Confederate Bayou
Thomas Schoonover, Hitler’s Man in Havana
Hans Sternberg, We Were Merchants
Discussions and Book Talks
Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans
Richard Campanella
Richard Campanella explores the historical geography of New Orleans through the notion of "dilemma"---that is, a situation involving a difficult but necessary choice which may yield undesirable consequences. This talk will take the audience through New Orleans's complex cultural landscapes, from colonial times to post-Katrina.
Journalism’s Roving Eye
John Maxwell Hamilton wilth Robert Mann
Lincoln’s Men, Women, Writing and Readers
Daniel Mark Epstein, Lincoln’s Men: The President and His Private Secretaries
Fred Kaplan, Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer
and Phelps Gay with David Madden
Prominent Lincoln biographers Fred Kaplan and Daniel Epstein and reader Phelps Gray, moderated by Lincoln Commissioner David Madden, discuss Lincoln's men, women, and writing style.
Made possible in part by a grant from Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities
Long Gone and Living On:
Plantations of Louisiana and the South
Anne Butler, The Pelican Guide to Plantation Homes of Louisiana
and Marc Matrana, Lost Plantations of the South
Lost – The Last Word on Last Island: Two Perspectives
Bill Dixon, Last Days of Last Island: The Hurricane of 1856, Louisiana's First Great Storm
and Abby Sallenger, Island in a Storm: A Rising Sea, a Vanishing Coast, and a Nineteenth
Century Storm that Warns of a Warmer World
Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times
Edited by Janet Allured and Judith Gentry
An anthology on the accomplishments of the women of Louisiana is too rich to be contained by one panel, so we have two, featuring contributors to Louisiana Women:
Louisiana Women of Letters: Sarah Katherine (Kate) Stone, Eliza Jane Nicholson, Kate Chopin and Grace King
Patricia Brady, Mary Farmer-Kaiser, Emily Toth
and Mary Ann Wilson with Janet Allured, moderator
Louisiana Women of Achievement: Cleoma Breaux Falcon, Oretha Castle Haley and Dr. Rowena Spencer
Kevin Fontenot, Shannon Frystak and Bambi L. Ray Cochran
with Judith Gentry, moderator
A New Look at Old Baton Rouge
Petra Hendry and Jay Edwards, Old South Baton Rouge: The Roots of Hope
and Faye Phillips, Baton Rouge
Not Without Honor: The Nazi POW Journal of Steve Carano
Kay Sloan with Bill Blackmon
How did POWs survive in World War II prison camps? Join Bill Blackmon, a former prisoner of war held in Stalag 17B, and author Kay Sloan for a discussion of the skills and techniques developed by the young men held by the Nazis.
Public Dollars for Culture: Lessons Learned from the WPA
Lawrence Powell, New Orleans City Guide
with Nick Spitzer
Is it time for a new New Deal? Nick Spitzer joins Lawrence Powell to discuss the implications today of the WPA guides to Louisiana (1941) and New Orleans (1938), for which Powell wrote the introduction to the recent reissue.
Rebellion, Resistance and Revolution:
Black Civil Rights Activism in the South
Orissa Arend, Showdown in Desire: The Black Panthers Take a Stand in New Orleans
and D’Army Bailey, The Education of a Black Radical:
A Southern Civil Rights Activist’s Journey, 1959-1964
with Lawrence Powell, moderator
Through a discussion of their books with moderator Lawrence Powell, the authors retrospectively examine civil rights activism in the South in the 60’s and into the 70’s, including that incendiary 1970 summer in New Orleans.
Sultana
Alan Huffman, Sultana: Surviving the Civil War, Prison,
and the Worst Maritime Disaster in American History
with Greg Langley
Mystery, Horror, and Thriller
Readings and Book Talks
Nevada Barr, 13 ½ - Nevada in New Orleans
Toni McGee Causey, When a Man Loves a Weapon
Charles Gramlich, Witch of Talera
Malcolm Shuman, The Levee: A Novel of Baton Rouge
Infamous Local Murder Resurfaces in Fiction
Discussion
Things That Go Bump: Paranormal Fiction
Rhodi Hawk, A Twisted Ladder
and Sarah Langan, Audrey’s Door
with Cheré Coen, moderator
Nature
Readings and Book Talks
Robert W. Hastings, The Lakes of Pontchartrain
Discussions and Book Talks
Appreciating the Natural Treasures of the Wetlands
Marcelle Bienvenu and Charlie Hohorst, Wings of Paradise: Birds of the Louisiana Wetlands
and Gay M. Gomez, The Louisiana Coast: Guide to an American Wetland
From Page to Screen:
Translating John James Audubon’s Story from Book to Documentary
Danny Heitman, A Summer of Birds: John James Audubon at Oakley House
MaryKatherine Callaway and Christina Melton with Beth Courtney, moderator
Join author Danny Heitman as he discusses the making of his acclaimed book into an upcoming Louisiana Public Broadcasting documentary and shares clips from the film. Other panelists include LSU Press executive director MaryKatherine Callaway, LPB President Beth Courtney, and LPB producer Christina Melton.
Hurricanes of the Gulf of Mexico
Barry D. Keim and Robert Muller
Nonfiction
Readings and Book Talks
Rick Bragg, The Most They Ever Had
William Caverlee, Amid the Swirling Ghosts and Other Essays
Ed Nelson, Beyond Peyton Place
Ned Sublette, One Author, Two Different Eras of New Orleans History
Discussions and Book Talks
American Routes: Songs and Stories from the Road
Nick Spitzer
Nick Spitzer, folklorist, recipient of a Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Humanitarian of the Year Award and host of American Routes, his weekly New Orleans produced radio program heard nationally on NPR, discusses his audiobook CD featuring twelve segments from some of the best past shows, including such diverse guests as Tom Waits, Dolly Parton, Jerry Garcia, and Feufollet, the Louisiana band performing on the book festival’s music stage this year.
Universal Access to HIV Treatment: The Story of an AIDS Warrior
Vince LiCata
Vince LiCata will discuss his and Ping Chong’s play, Cocktail, about how a Thai pharmaceutical chemist became the first person to combine multiple HIV drugs into one tablet. HIV/AIDS from Baton Rouge to Sub-Saharan Africa will be discussed, along with slides and short video segments of the theatrical production and of the real Dr. Kraisintu and her work toward universal HIV treatment.
Eudora Welty as Photographer? Absolutely!
Pearl Amelia McHaney
with John Lawrence
“A good snapshot stops a moment from running away” is Eudora Welty’s most often quoted epigraph. Had Welty realized any profit from her 1930s photographs, perhaps we’d be spending 2009 celebrating the centennial of a renowned American photographer. McHaney discusses the recent collection of photographs, some never before seen, with John Lawrence, The Historic New Orleans Collection.
Made possible in part through a donation from Michael D. Robinson
The Fine Art of Giving Advice: Ms. Mentor Tells It All
Emily Toth
Emily Toth/"Ms. Mentor," the agony aunt of academia, reveals secrets of advice giving: who asks, how they ask ("I have this friend who has this problem") and what they really want to know.
Good as Anybody
Rick Bragg, The Most They Ever Had
At this first scheduled Louisiana appearance for his just released and much anticipated new book, The Most They Ever Had, Rick Bragg shares the real-life stories of the blue-collared people of Jacksonville, Alabama, who lived and died by an American cotton mill.
"Letters, Words, and Combinations Thereof": Roy Blount Jr.'s Alphabet Juice
Roy Blount Jr.
Roy Blount Jr. always has something to say. Join us as he discusses his book about the juicy words he uses to say it - and those he avoids.
The Life of a Literary Escort
Ted O’Brien
with Wally Lamb
New Orleans in Its Own Voices:
"Nine Lives" from Hurricane Betsy to Hurricane Katrina
Dan Baum, Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans
with Warwick Sabin
Dan Baum, who covered Hurricane Katrina for The New Yorker, discusses with Warwick Sabin, publisher of Oxford American, how and why he built his best-selling non-fiction book around nine New Orleanians and extended it from 1965 to the present, rather than write a "Katrina book."
Online Writing Communities
Joy Preble, Dreaming Anastasia: A Novel of Love, Magic, and the Power of Dreams
Fran Cannon Slayton, When the Whistle Blows
and Donna St. Cyr, The Secrets of the Cheese Syndicate
Members of the online writing group Class of 2k9 discuss how reaching out across the ether can improve your skills and widen your market – the online writing community provides a wealth of resources and opportunities for fellowship. They will focus on critique groups, chat boards and blogs – both for the writers to improve skills and for the authors to market their works.
The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing
Roy Blount Jr., Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Piazza
with Marc Smirnoff, moderator
The Pulpwood Queen’s Capitol Improvement: High Hair and Tall Tales
Kathy L. Patrick, The Pulpwood Queen's Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life
Kathy L. Patrick (a.k.a. Kat on a Hot Tin Roof Rusted), owner of the only combination beauty shop and bookstore in the country, as featured on Oprah and other national broadcasts, will discuss her popular booklovers book. Learn how you can begin your own chapter of the Pulpwood Book Club; now there’s even a spinoff for men: the Timber Guys. As lagniappe, one lucky audience member will receive a free new ‘do during the program. After the presentation, mingle with current members of the branches anticipated to attend (look for tiaras). Hopefully, there will be no splinter groups.
Remembering Coleen:
A Tribute to Coleen Salley – and a Parade!
Lori Benton, Terrence Young, Jr.
and Freddi Williams Evans with Mary Grey James, moderator
Made possible in part by a donation from John Turner and Jerry Fischer
Rowing to Sweden: A Spiritual and Intellectual Autobiography
Fredrick Barton, Rowing to Sweden
In his collection of essays, Rowing to Sweden, Fredrick Barton discusses a variety of issues including religion, politics, war, race and art. Some of the pieces are essay-length instances of memoir; many proceed from the viewing of a film or group of films to a larger discussion of the issues that film or those films raise, and others address such influential figures in his life as Muhammad Ali and Will Campbell. The title essay discusses the impact the novel Catch-22 has had in the way Barton has looked at the world and refers to the novel's end when Yossarian, like Orr before him, tries to escape the madness of war by rowing to Sweden.
Self-Published Works by Louisiana Writers
Frances Conley Swayzer, Prez Lives! Remembering Grambling’s
Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones
Marie Etienne, Confessions of a Bi-Polar Mardi Gras Queen
Susan Fleet, Absolution
and Kent Mayeux, Three Weeks with Gustav: A Cajun Family, a Capitol City and a Southern
State Coping with the Perils of Hurricane Gustav
with Ronald Gauthier, moderator
Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder that Rocked New Orleans
Ethan Brown and Thomas Neff
with Joe Formichella, moderator
Ethan Brown’s Shake the Devil Off chronicles the life of Zackery Bowen, an Iraq war veteran who murdered his girlfriend and then killed himself in New Orleans in 2006. Brown discusses his book with photographer Thomas Neff, whose photo of the couple graces the cover of Brown’s book, and moderator Joe Formichella, an author who himself traced another true crime in Murder Creek.
Soul Survivor:
The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot
Andrea and Bruce Leininger
The Stigma of Leprosy: An American Secret
Neil White, In the Sanctuary of Outcasts: A Memoir
José P. Ramirez, Jr., Squint: My Journey with Leprosy
and Magdalena Ramirez
with Marcia Gaudet, moderator
Under Cover: Agents, Editors, and Publishers – What Are They Looking For?
Michael Murphy, Kathy Pories, and Marc Smirnoff
A discussion of what editors, publishers, and agents are looking for when determining what to publish or represent.
Poetry
Readings
Daniel Mark Epstein, Glass House: Poems
Beth Ann Fennelly, Open House
Discussions and Readings
Conversation and Reading: Louisiana's Poet Laureate Presents Jeanie Thompson
Jeanie Thompson, The Seasons Bear Us: Poems
with Darrell Bourque
Darrell Bouque welcomes the return to Louisiana of Jeanie Thompson, poet and executive director/founder of The Alabama Writers’ Forum and director of the Forum’s “Writing Our Stories: An Anti-Violence Creative Writing Program” with the Alabama Department of Youth Services. Jeanie, who once taught at UNO and the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, will discuss her recent collection, The Seasons Bear Us, and other works with Bourque.
Louisiana's Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Voices:
A Poetry Panel
Peter J. Cooley, Divine Margins
Julie Kane, Jazz Funeral
Saddi Khali
Zachary Richard, Feu
and Martha Serpas, The Dirty Side of the Storm: Poems
with Darrell Bourque, presiding
Darrell Bourque moderates a panel of poets from across the state reading from and discussing their work.
The WordPlay Youth Spoken Word Showcase
Myeshia Carter, Chase Chenevert, DeAndre Hill,
Taylor James, Christin Rankins and Daniel Richard
with Chancelier “xero” Skidmore, moderator
Romance
Discussions and Readings
Keeping Romance Hot in a Cold Market
Shelia Goss, His Invisible Wife
Elaine Grant, No Hero like Him
and Robin Wells, How to Score
with Cheré Coen, moderator
Sports
Discussion
A Super Bowl Story for the Ages: The Long Snapper
Jeffrey Marx and Brian Kinchen |
