Book events this week - Feb. 22-28

UL-Lafayette anthropology professor Ray Brassieur will speak on “Louisiana Healing Traditions into the 21st Century” as part of McNeese University’s SAGE Program from 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday in Thibodaux. A booksigning will follow. Registration is required; visit www.mcneese.edu/leisure.
            Joshua Davis, author of several books, including the Lafayette Reads Together book “Spare Parts,” which was first adapted into a documentary, “Underwater Dreams,” and then a movie, “Spare Parts,” in 2015 will speak about his book at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday in the Lafayette Main Library Meeting Room. Davis has been a contributing editor at Wired since 2003, and has also written for the New Yorker, GQ, Outside, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Men’s Health and Food & Wine.

            Do you have a fun or unusual nickname? The Festival of Words will host a “Nickname Open Mic” from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Chicory Coffee and Café in Grand Coteau. The time limit is five minutes in which participants can explain whether they love or hate their nickname, describe where it came from and tell of their experiences carrying this name. For more information, contact festivalwords@gmail.com or call (337) 254-9695.

            Local robotics teams and businesses will demonstrate what their machines can do at Robotics Day from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in the Lafayette Main Library Meeting Room.

The 2016 Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration will be Friday and Saturday in Natchez, Miss.

Julie Cantrell, author of “The Feathered Bone,” a novel set in New Orleans about human trafficking, will speak on a panel at 10 a.m. Saturday at the Livingston Parish Courthouse in Livingston. The event is hosted by Cavalier House Books and includes Emily Morrow Chenevert of Trafficking Hope, an organization dedicating to combating human trafficking; Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard and a representative from the Louisiana State Police human trafficking task force.
            Bookmaking Workshop with Frank Hamrick will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe. Participants will make two books, a simple hardbound stitch book and a more complex Coptic hardbound book. The cost is $135 for museum members and $155 for nonmembers. Call (318) 329-2237.

            Carole Boston Weatherford discusses and signs her book, “Freedom in Congo Square,” from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, at Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans. This poetic, nonfiction story chronicles slaves’ duties each day, from chopping logs on Mondays to baking bread on Wednesdays to plucking hens on Saturday, and builds to the freedom of Sundays and the special experience of an afternoon spent in Congo Square. This book contains a forward from Freddi Williams Evans, a historian and Congo Square expert, as well as a glossary of terms with pronunciations and definitions.

Cheré Dastugue Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” She also writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.