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.