Tennessee Williams Festival winners announced

            The 2014 Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival Fiction Contest announced its winners. The finalists, all of whom will receive a pass to this year’s festival, are: Elysha Chang, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Rebecca Foust, Ross, Calif.; Margarite Landry, Southborough, Mass.; Frank Meola, Brooklyn, N.Y.; Oreathia Smith, Pearlington, Miss.; and Rachel Unkefer, Charlottesville, Va.

            The First Runner-Up is Colleen Morrissey with her submission “Loveland.” The Grand Prize Winner is Christine Fadden for her story “Little League Girls!” Fadden has lived in a dozen states and a few foreign countries. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published in the American Literary Review, Gulf Coast, Painted Bride Quarterly, Storyglossia, PANK, The Louisville Review, and elsewhere. She is a graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.            

            “Little League Girls” will be published in a future issue of Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine, and Fadden will receive a flight to New Orleans, a public reading at the festival and $1,500. Fadden will also read from the short story at 10 a.m. Friday, March 21, at the Hotel Monteleone’s Queen Anne Ballroom in New Orleans. The annual festival is March 19-23 in New Orleans. For information, visit http://www.tennesseewilliams.net/.

New releases

            Randall C. Jimerson, professor of history and director of the graduate program in Archives and Records Management at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington, explores the public and private impact of the Civil Rights struggle in “Shattered Glass in Birmingham: My Family’s Fight for Civil Rights, 1961–1964,” published by LSU Press. The book traces the experiences of a white northern family during the climax of the movement in Alabama’s largest city, recounted primarily from Jimerson’s perspective as one of five children of the Rev. Norman C. “Jim” Jimerson, executive director of the Alabama Council on Human Relations. Randall Jimerson is the author of “The Private Civil War: Popular Thought during the Sectional Conflict and Archives Power: Memory, Accountability, and Social Justice.”

            John H. Stibbs, the 30-year Dean of Students at Tulane University, wrote a memoir that was discovered in 2010 by John Edgar Browning, a PhD student at State University of New York at Buffalo. After gaining permission from the Stibbs heirs, Browning edited and annotated the memoir with news clippings, documents and photos to showcase Tulane University at mid-century. “A Quarter Century of Student Life at Tulane: A Dean's Narrative History 1949-1975” sells for $22 and is available through Margaret Media, a Louisiana publisher, at www.margaretmedia.com.

Book news

            New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Sabrina Jeffries has sold three Regency romances to Pocket, finishing out her “Duke’s Men” series and starting a new one. The former New Orleans novelist has also sold a Christmas novella to Pocket.

            Ronlyn Domingue of Lafayette’s latest book, “The Mapmaker’s War,” part one of the “Keeper of Tales” trilogy, is now in paperback.

Library Book Sale

            The Friends of the Lafayette Public Library Spring Book Sale will be March 20-22 at the Heymann Convention Center Ballroom but the corresponding auction, where the public may bid on quality books, will be now through March 31 at South Regional Branch Library. Donations are also still being accepted for the annual spring book sale. For information, call 501-9209.

Book events

            Mary and Warren Perrin will discuss their forthcoming book, “Acadia Then and Now: a People’s History,” at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 9, at the Alexander Mouton House/Lafayette Museum in downtown Lafayette.

            Alan G. Gauthreaux signs and discusses “Italian Louisiana: History, Heritage & Tradition” from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at Louisiana's Old State Capitol, 100 North Blvd. in Baton Rouge.

            The Jeanerette Bicentennial Park and Museum will host a history talk, “Violent Louisiana: Chaos After the Civil War” by UL-Lafayette Professor Michael Martin at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 12, at 500 E. Main St. in Jeanerette. The talk will discuss the period from the end of the Civil War until the early twentieth century, one of the most violent eras in Louisiana's history.

            In honor of National Quilting Day, March 16, the Quilters’ Guild Acadienne will showcase more than 50 quilts and host live quilting demonstrations from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, March 15 and 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, March 16, at the Alexandre Mouton House/ Lafayete Museum in downtown Lafayette. Speakers on Sunday will discuss topics including quilts in the Underground Railroad and the history of quilts in America. The event is free.

Cheré Coen is the author of “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana,” both from The History Press, and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She teaches writing at UL-Lafayette’s Continuing Education. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.