More than 250 authors scheduled to appear at the 16th annual Louisiana Book Festival

The 16th Annual Louisiana Book Festival gathers more than 250 authors and presenters from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, in downtown Baton Rouge’s Capitol Park with events and programming in the Louisiana State Capitol, State Library of Louisiana, Capitol Park Museum, Capitol Park Event Center, and in tents on neighboring streets. There will be more than 100 programs offered throughout the day, followed by book signings in the Barnes & Noble tent, where featured titles will also be available for purchase.

The festival begins with State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton honoring 2019 Louisiana Writer Award recipient Richard Campanella in the State Capitol. Campanella is a Tulane University School of Architecture professor and the author of 10 books and 200 publications on Louisiana and New Orleans geography.

Throughout the day there will be best-selling authors speaking, storytelling performances for children, live musical performances, cooking demonstrations and book-related exhibitors. A special program in the Senate Chamber this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of Little Free Library, with a panel attendee winning a Little Free Library donated by the Louisiana Library and Book Festival Foundation. Now in its 11th year, the One Book, One Festival program invites attendees to read Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” with Dr. Gary Richards leading the discussion at the festival.

I'll be moderating the Modern Day Romance: Love Finds a Way panel with authors Abby Jimenez ("The Friend Zone") and Casey McQuiston ("Red, White and Royal Blue") at 11:15 a.m. in Senate Committee Room A. I'm be one of several authors on the Building a Mystery: Creating a Series in Genre Fiction panel at 2:15 p.m. in Senate Committee Room F. The other mystery authors will be Laura Cayouette ("The Haunted Heirloom"), Sandra Bretting ("All Hats on Deck"), P.M. LaRose ("Beers Abroad: Peril in London") and Ellen Byron, moderator ("Fatal Cajun Festival").

For a full list of authors (including yours truly) along with programs and a downloadable schedule, visit LouisianaBookFestival.org.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

Louisiana's annual Festival of Words bringing three acclaimed writers to Grand Coteau Nov. 1-2

The Festival of Words gathers three nationally recognized authors — Novelist Yuri Hererra, Spoken Word Poet Donney Rose and Poet Tyler Robert Sheldon — for two days of memorable events Friday and Saturday, Nov. 1 and 2, 2019, in Grand Coteau. The festival will include creative writing workshops in community centers and public schools, a community stage for open mic, “Drive-by Poetry” in grocery stores, boutiques and restaurants and opportunities for people to interact with authors.

Friday night’s event takes place at Chicory’s Caf頩n Grand Coteau featuring a poetry presentation by Tyler Robert Sheldon, a dynamic spoken word performance by Donney Rose and Yuri Herrera reading from his award-winning fiction. On Saturday, Drive-by Poetry performers will recite poems in Grand Coteau and Sunset businesses. Meanwhile, there will be an open mic and multiple creative writing workshops at the Thensted Center, which are open to the public, as well as a blackpot cook-off. 

For more information, visit festivalofwords.org or contact Martha Garner at (337) 804-2482 or  fowmartha@gmail.com.

AUTHORS

Yuri Herrera (Actopan, Hidalgo, Mexico, 1970). received his BA in Political Science at UNAM, his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Texas at El Paso, and his Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley. His first novel "Kingdom Cons" won the Binational Young Novel Award in 2003 and received the "Other Voices, Other Viewpoints" prize for the best novel published in Spanish in 2008. His second novel, "Signs Preceding the End of the World," was a finalist of the Romulo Gallegos Prize. He published in 2013 "The Transmigration of Bodies." The three novels have been translated into multiple languages, including English.

In 2016 he shared with translator Lisa Dillman the Best Translated Book Award for the translation of "Signs Preceding the End of the World." In 2016, Rice University and Literal Publishing published "Talud," a collection of his short stories. Also in 2016 he received the Anna Seghers Prize at the Academy of Arts of Berlin, for the body of his work. His latest book is "The Fire in the El Bordo Mine."

He has taught literary theory, creative writing and Latin American literature at the Universidad Iberoamericana, in Mexico; and at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, before coming to Tulane University, where he is an associate professor. 

Donney Rose is a poet, teaching artist, creative consultant, and community activist from Baton Rouge. He holds a BS in Marketing from Southern University. He is also the Chief Operating Officer of Black Out Loud Conference, which hosted its first three-day conference in Baton Rouge in August 2018. 

Donney has authored two books – "The Crying Buck," an acclaimed chapbook of poetry that delves into Black masculinity and vulnerability through a critical lens, and "Black Out Loud," a collection of prose-style poetic interpretations of Black History Month 2017. His work as a performance poet/writer has been featured in a variety of publications, including Atlanta Black Star , Blavit , Button Poetry , All Def Digital , Slam Find , [225 Magazine] , Drunk In A Midnight Choir , and Nicholls State University's Gris-Gris literary journal . Donney also contributed two articles to the St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture, 1st Edition (St. James Press, February 2018).

Hailed as a pivotal community voice in Baton Rouge, Donney’s advocacy work has been featured on local, national, and international platforms, including BBC, HuffPost , The New York Times , PBS' PBS' Democracy Now , and The Advocate . He was also featured on the Fight the Flood album, a project by various artists to benefit the Capital Area United Way's flood relief projects in 2016.

His awards and recognitions are many. Donney is a past Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, a member of the 2017 Greater Baton Rouge Business Report Forty under 40 class, the recipient of the Ink Festival's inaugural Making a Mark award, New Venture Theatre's 2016 Humanitarian of the Year, and a 2018 LINKS Role Model, among other accolades.

Donney lives in his hometown of Baton Rouge with his wife and fellow writer, Leslie, and their twin cats, Jalen and Derrick. 

Tyler Robert Sheldon’s five poetry collections include "Driving Together" (Meadowlark Books, 2018) and "Consolation Prize" (Finishing Line Press, 2018). He is Editor-in-Chief of MockingHeart Review, and his poetry, fiction, artwork, and criticism have appeared in The Los Angeles Review, Pleiades, The Tulane Review, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and other venues. 

A Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of the Charles E. Walton Essay Award, he is an MFA candidate at McNeese State University, and in the Fall of 2019 he will pursue his PhD in English at Louisiana State University. View his work at TylerRobertSheldon.com.  

Grab a Louisiana book this fall!

Looking for a good fall read? Here’s some new releases to choose from…

First, I have to brag, the fifth book in my Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series, “Give Up the Ghost,” hit online bookshelves Oct. 13. I will be discussing this book and “Ghost Trippin’,” the fourth book in the series, at the Louisiana Book Festival on Nov. 2 in Baton Rouge. But you can find my ebooks at all online stores and paperbacks at Amazon.

UL Press and the Center for Louisiana Studies have just released “O Malheureuse: French Writing by Louisiana Women,” edited by Ashlee Wilson Michot and featuring the work of 50 contributing female authors writing in Louisiana French.

UL Press has also released “Taking the World, by Storm: A Conversation with Warren ‘Storm’ Schexnider, the Godfather of Swamp Pop” by Yvette Landry.

In honor of the American Folklore Society annual meeting, folklore titles from the University Press of Mississippi are 30 percent off until Nov. 16 (apply code FOLKLORE19 at checkout for the discount). Some of the titles are: 

“When They Blew the Levee: Race, Politics, and Community in Pinhook, Missouri” by David Todd Lawrence and Elaine J. Lawless; “Downtown Mardi Gras: New Carnival Practices in Post-Katrina New Orleans” by Leslie A. Wade, Robin Roberts and Frank de Caro; “Jockomo: The Native Roots of Mardi Gras Indians” by Shane Lief and John McCusker; and “Language in Louisiana: Community and Culture,” edited by Nathalie Dajko and Shane Walton.

Jody Plauche recalls the bitter crime he experienced at the hands of his Baton Rouge karate teacher with “Why, Gary, Why? The Jody Plauche Story.” 

Billionaire and sole owner of Fertitta Entertainment, Tilman Fertitta, relates his personal strategies to help the next generation of entrepreneurs achieve success in his new book, “Shut Up and Listen!”

Deanna Chase’s “A Witch for Mr. Holiday,” a story in set in Christmas Grove, where holiday magic and matchmaking is in the air, will be out in time for the holidays. You can read her “Power of the Witch” now, book seven in the “Wtiches of Keating Hollow” series.

Bayou Diversity blogger and multi-published author Kelby Ouchley has published “Natural Words: A Dictionary for Naturalists,” a guide for nature lovers with an interest in learning the terminology used to relate to the natural world. It is available from Amazon in paperback and e-book here.

Waights Taylor turns to young adults in his latest book, “Henry Tuttle: The Boy who Ran to Glory” where a teenager must overcome bullies, a troubled friend, a courtroom trial, an attempted murder, and a forest fire to achieve his dream. The book is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.

Louisiana artist Jax Frey has published her a humorous debut novel “The Gumbeaux Sistahs,” set in Covington and New Orleans. The story involves five Southern women who wage a war against the ageism problems of one of their sisters using their improbable friendships, oh-so-numerous cocktails and a shared passion for good gumbo.

Norman German just launched his new murder-mystery novel “Cripple Bayou Two-Step,” a fast-paced journey through the dark side of the back waters of Lake Charles with a politically incorrect one-armed PI named Shreve West. It was a finalist in St. Martin’s Private Eye Writers of American first novel contest. German is also the author of “A Savage Wisdom,” a fictional take on the first and only woman to be executed in Louisiana's electric chair in 1942.

Louisiana author Liz Talley is having a great year, with a Christmas book out now titled “A Down Home Christmas” by Hallmark. Her “Room to Breathe” by Montlake hits bookstore shelves on Nov. 1, and was chosen as an Amazon First Reads book.

Miki Pfeffer focuses on the period shortly after Grace King wrote her first stories in post-Reconstruction New Orleans in “A New Orleans Author in Mark Twain's Court: Letters from Grace King's New England Sojourns.” She will discuss the book at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 19, at the East Bank Regional Library in Metairie.

Louisiana author Shevelle Ford pens a tale of a young girl named Liesa and her daily walks with her mother in the children's book “The Dog that Would Not Bark.” As the two travel the neighborhood, Liesa takes in the city's sights and sounds and develops a special love for the local animals. She’s very curious about one particular pup who does not bark like the rest of the neighborhood dogs.

Coming up…

Ellen Byron's "Fatal Cajun Festival," part of her Cajun Country Mystery series, arrives just in time for the Louisiana Book Festival on Nov. 2. Byron will be speaking about her book at the festival panel, "Building a Mystery: Creating a Series in Genre Fiction" with yours truly. So, grab a book and come hear us speak.

“Essence of the Witch” by Deanna Chase will be released Dec. 2 and features cursed Miranda Moon who suffers one bad date after another. After lighting a man’s hair on fire and ending up on a blind date with her cousin, she’s ready to lose herself in the books she writes and live her life as a spinster… until Gideon Alexander, the one man she’s always wanted, walks back into her life.

Suzanne Stone looks at New Orleans java background in “New Orleans Coffee: A Rich History.” She will discuss the book at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 13, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.