Dozens of authors scheduled for Louisiana Book Festival

The Louisiana Book Festival, featuring more than 250 authors and panelists discussing their books and more than 100 programs, will be Saturday at Baton Rouge’s Capitol Park. Every year I’ve attended this event the weather has been spectacular, the authors amazing and the programs enlightening. You don’t want to miss this.

And best of all, it’s free.

State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton will present children’s book author Johnette Downing with the Louisiana Writer Award and former award winners William Joyce, Tim Gautreaux and Darrell Bourque will be in attendance. There will also be New York Times bestselling Oprah-acclaimed author Wally Lamb, Newbery Medal and Margaret A. Edwards Award recipient Richard Peck, Baton Rouge’s own M.O. Walsh, in conversation with Big Fish author Daniel Wallace discussing his latest book and Crystal Wilkinson with her Ernest J. Gaines Award-winning book, to name a few. The festival will also feature MasterChef Season 7 winner Shaun O’Neale and punk rock icon and former frontman of Black Flag, Keith Morris.

I’ll be moderating two panels this year, both I’m really excited about. “The Louisiana Ladies of Mystery” panel will include author Ellen Byron, “A Cajun Christmas;” Liah Penn, “Bare Bones;” Erica Spindler, “The Other Girl;” Colleen Mooney, “Drive Thru Murder: A Brandy Alexander Mystery” and Mary Beth Magee, “Ambush at the Arboretum.” And I’ll be signing copies of my new Viola Valentine paranormal mystery series. The “Making the Magical and Supernatural Real in Fiction” panel includes Shirley McCoy, “If the Shoes Fits;” Josephine Templeton, “Broken (The Fallen Angel Series)” and Alexandrea Weiss, “Blackwell.”

As I mentioned, the festival is free but tickets are available for the Authors Party, held Friday evening in the State Library where attendees will enjoy drinks, Louisiana cuisine, live music and the chance to mingle with authors. Ticket sales serve as a donation to the Louisiana Library and Book Festival Foundation. For more information on events, visitwww.louisianabookfestival.org.

Festival of Words

The Festival of Words will host an evening of poetry and an open mic at 7 p.m. Wednesday, which will also serve as the book release celebration of “Spirits of the Gods,” a collaboration between poet John Warner Smith and artist Dennis Paul Williams. The book is Smith’s third collection of poetry. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for the Sundress Best of the Net Anthology. Smith earned his MFA in creative writing at UNO. Williams is perhaps most recognizable as the guitarist for Nathan and the Zydeco Cha Chas. His artwork has been shown worldwide and he has been featured on “Nightline” with Ted Koppell and “World Café” and “American Routes” on National Public Radio. For more information, call Patrice Melnick at (337) 254-9695 or email festivalwords@gmail.com. 

Kemper Prize

The Historic New Orleans Collection and the Louisiana Historical Association awarded Rashauna Johnson’s “Slavery’s Metropolis: Unfree Labor in New Orleans during the Age of Revolutions” the winner of the 2016 Kemper and Leila Williams Prize in Louisiana History. In “Slavery’s Metropolis” Johnson uses slave circulations through New Orleans between 1791 and 1825 to map the social and cultural history of enslaved men and women and the rapidly shifting city, nation and world in which they lived. Johnson is associate professor in the department of history at Dartmouth College. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Howard University, she also holds a PhD in history with a concentration in the African diaspora from New York University. The hardback book, which retails for $49.99, is available for purchase at The Shop at The Collection in New Orleans, at www.hnoc.org or (504) 598-7147.

Levy Lecture

Dr. Edward Mendelson, professor of English and Comparative Literature and the Lionel Trilling Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, will give the Annual Flora Plonsky Levy Lecture at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in James Oliver Hall on the University of Louisiana-Lafayette campus. A member of the Columbia faculty since 1981, Mendelson is also the literary executor of the Estate of W. H. Auden and the author or editor of several books about Auden’s work. He is also the author of “The Things That Matter: What Seven Classic Novels Have to Say About the Stages of Life” and “Moral Agents: Eight Twentieth-Century American Writers.” Mendelson’s topic for the lecture will be “T. S. Eliot’s Real Citizens and Unreal Cities.” He will include references to some of Eliot’s most famous poems, including “Sweeney Among the Nightingales,” “Burbank with a Baedeker,” “Bleistein with a Cigar,” “The Waste Land” and “Four Quartets.” This lecture is free and open to the public.  For more information, call (337) 482-6906.

Book events the week of Oct. 22-28

Alton Carter, a former foster child and police officer, will discuss his new book “The Boy Who Carried the Bricks” at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the East Bank Regional Library, Metairie. Also at the library this week is Susan Tucker and Lee Grue, contributors to the anthology “Mending from Memory: Sewing in Louisiana,” at 7 p.m. Thursday and Marc Matrana discussing his book “Southern Splendor: Saving Architectural Treasures of the Old South” at 7 p.m. Thursday.

The Historic New Orleans Collection will host artist, author and scholar Maurice Martinez at 6 p.m. Tuesday for an evening celebrating his work, including a screening of the documentary “Too White To Be Black, Too Black To Be White: The New Orleans Creole,” which provides firsthand accounts of the experiences of a group of mixed-race New Orleanians who identify as Creole. The screening will be followed by a book signing for his forthcoming “Blackcreole: Recollections of a Mixed-Race New Orleans Colored Creole In Limbo.” Admission is free, and reservations are encouraged.

Award-winning author David Fulmer launches “Eclipse Alley,” the latest installment in his Valentin St. Cyr mystery series, at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Octavia Books of New Orleans. His “Chasing the Devil’s Tail” was nominated for a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Barry Award and a Falcon Award. Also at the store this week is Richard Campanella signing “Cityscapes of New Orleans at 6 p.m. Wednesday and poet Nicole Cooley reading from “Girl After Girl After Girl” with fellow poets Martha Serpas and Ava Leavell Haymon at 6 p.m. Thursday.

Kris Lackey discusses and signs his book “Nail’s Crossing” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Garden District Book Shop of New Orleans.

Anne Butler and Helen Williams will discuss their latest book, “Bayou Sara — Used to Be,” Saturday and Sunday, Oct. 28-29, at the Yellow Leaf Arts Festival in St. Francisville.

Louisiana Book News is written by journalist Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and paranormal mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. The first books in her award-winning series are FREE as ebooks! For more information and to sign up for her newsletter visit www.cherieclaire.net.