Critic, editor Krystal to deliver annual Levy Lecture

Noted critic and editor Arthur Krystal will deliver the Flora Plonsky Levy Lecture at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Oliver Hall Auditorium (Room 112) on the University of Louisiana at Lafayette campus. Krystal’s talk will center on the friendship of Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling, two major literary and cultural figures of the mid-20th century, who for 40 years taught together at Columbia University.  The title of the lecture is “Jacques Barzun and Lionel Trilling — An Improbable Friendship.”

Krystal received a master’s in English and comparative literature from Columbia University in 1970. He took a class with Barzun and in time they became friends. At Barzun’s request, Krystal edited “The Culture We Deserve” and later “A Company of Readers,” which reprints 45 of the essays that Barzun, W. H. Auden and Trilling wrote for The Readers’ Subscription Book Club, which they founded in 1951. 

Krystal has written for the Times Literary Supplement, the American Scholar, Harper’s, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post Book World, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and other publications. His profile of Barzun appeared in the New Yorker in 2007, on the occasion of Barzun’s 100th birthday. Krystal’s own books include four collections of essays, including his most recent “This Thing We Call Literature.”

For more information, contact levyendowment@louisiana.edu.

Poetry Month

In celebration of National Poetry Month, the Louisiana Center for the Book is announcing the sixth annual Just Listen to Yourself: The Louisiana Poet Laureate Presents Louisiana Poets program. Louisiana Poet Laureate Peter Cooley will host the event from noon to 1:30 p.m. Thursday in the Seminar Center at the State Library of Louisiana in Baton Rouge. Cooley has invited poets from throughout the state to participate in readings of their work. Those included are Jack Bedell, Darrell Bourque, Mary Katherine Brake, Gina Ferrara, Lara Glenum, Kelly Harris, Julie Kane, Donney Rose and John Warner Smith. Registration is not required for this free event, and attendees are invited to bring brown bag lunches.

In other poetry news, the inaugural New Orleans Poetry Festival will take Friday through Sunday in New Orleans. For information, visit www.lavenderink.org/poetryfest.

New releases

Author Alex V. Cook dissects diners, restaurants serving those amazing plate lunch specials and Bayou State roadside eaters in his latest book, “Seat Yourself: The Best of South Louisiana’s Local Diners, Lunch Houses, and Roadside Stops,” published by LSU Press. It’s not all about boudin and smothered chicken, although there are plenty of those delicious dishes to go around. The lineup is as varied as the dishes, pizza and beer at Fleur de Lis Pizza of Baton Rouge, veal Parmesan and mac and cheese at Rocky and Carlo’s of Chalmette, pies and ham sandwiches at Lea’s Lunchroom in Lecompte and so much more. If you want a guide to those out-of-the-way places along with a few sterling well-known spots south of Alexandria, Cook gives his personal take on some of Louisiana’s best.

            Lynn Shurr of New Iberia will release in soft cover and ebook “A Will of Her Own” on Saturday by Wild Rose Press. Main character Kara Shafer gives up on her college crush, Will Collier, and runs off with a rock band when their leader declares her his muse. While Kara endures a rocky marriage on the road to fame, she wonders if Will’s life has turned out as he planned. Does he ever think of the girl who wanted him so badly in college? For information, visit www.lynnshurr.com.

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.

Holt's latest a sweet tale told in letters to Hank Williams

            Young Tate P. Ellerbee lives in a small town in central Louisiana in 1948 and listens to the “Louisiana Hayride” music show on her radio every Saturday night. So when her teacher suggests writing to a pen pal, she choses Hank Williams. The adults in her life question her choice of recipient but Tate doesn’t care, spilling her heart out to her new musical hero in “Dear Hank Williams” by Kimberly Willis Holt.

            I first met Holt, a National Book Award winner, at a Book Expo convention in New York City, the national conference for publishers. Over coffee she first told me about her family in Forest Hill, located about 20 miles south of Alexandria. Her father was in the navy, so during a tricky transfer Holt lived with her grandparents in Forest Hill for a while, a memory she holds dear.

            Years later Holt and I reconnected when I began writing my history of Forest Hill, a town of about 900 people but also 220-plus plant nurseries and a multi-million dollar industry. Again, Holt gushed about the small town that had captured her heart. She had used the town in most of her books, although she routinely renamed the location.

            For instance, in “Dear Hank Williams,” her latest young reader novel, the town is called Rippling Creek but Holt includes the cemetery across the street from Tate’s house, based on Butters Cemetery where Holt’s grandmother is buried, and many other central Louisiana locations. The Louisiana Hayride is real as well, a live music show on KWKH where Williams — and Elvis — got his break.

            “Forest Hill was the kind of place that when people are sick they care about you,” Holt told me when I was interviewing her for my Forest Hill book. “It’s a really special place and I’m so glad it’s a part of me — and always will be.”
             Readers will deeply feel this love in “Dear Hank Williams.” The story is told through Tate’s letters to the musician, at first informative and fun — what you would expect from an elementary school girl — then becoming heart-breaking as we learn of her family’s situation. Through it all, however, Tate is surrounded by love from her extended family and those in the community. In the end she finds her voice for both the town talent contest and truths buried deep inside.
              Holt will be signing books at 2 p.m. today at the West Baton Rouge Library, at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Maple Street Book Shop in New Orleans and at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble Lafayette. For more information, visit http://www.kimberlywillisholt.com/.

Writing workshop

Amédé Ardoin grew up in Acadiana and recorded more than 30 songs in recording sessions in New Orleans, San Antonio, and New York City. He was beaten in a racial assault in the mid-1930s and suffered severe brain injury, landing him at the Central Louisiana Hospital in Pineville. He died in 1942 and is buried in an unmarked grave on the hospital grounds.

People have tried for years to get Ardoin’s remains moved to his home place near the Eunice area but because of the circumstances of the burial, such retrieval is impossible. The Amédé Ardoin Project is a community effort of the Acadiana Cajun and Creole communities along with the Ardoin family to “bring Amédé home” symbolically. The Project includes the creation of a statue to honor Amédé’s contributions to the combined and often overlapping Cajun and Creole cultures.

Former Louisiana Poet Laureate Darrell Bourque has written a poetry chapbook in honor of Ardoin and to raise funds for the project. He will present a Writing Workshop from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at Cité des Arts, 109 Vine St. in downtown Lafayette, open to writers of all levels of experience. Each part of the workshop will be designed with a writing prompt and the writers will be encouraged to write in any genre. Prompts will be taken from the works of Naomi Shihab Nye, Ernest J. Gaines and Raymond Carver and from Ardoin’s songs. The workshop fee is $50, money to be donated to the Amédé Ardoin Project.

            That evening, an “Amédé Ardoin Veillée” will take place at 6 p.m., with Bourque reading from his chapbook, accompanied by musicians playing the old time music of the pre-LaLa and LaLa traditions. Works from the workshop writers will be interwoven into the program, books will be sold and donations to the Ardoin fund will be accepted.

To sign up for the workshops, contact Danny Ladmirault at danny@citedesarts.org or call (337) 291-1122.

Book events

Kimberly Willis Holt, author of “Dear Hank Williams,” will be signing books at 2 p.m. today at the West Baton Rouge Library, at 5 p.m. Wednesday at Maple Street Book Shop in New Orleans and at 6:30 p.m. Friday at Barnes & Noble Lafayette. For more information, visit http://www.kimberlywillisholt.com/.

Greg Iles discusses and signs copies of his new novel, “The Bone Tree,” at 6 p.m. Wednesday at Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans.

Christophe Pourny will discuss and sign his book, “The Furniture Bible: Everything You Need to Know to Identify, Restore and Care for Furniture,” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans.

Warren and Mary Perrin, editors of “Acadie Then and Now: A People’s History,” will speak about their new book from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Acadia Parish Library in Crowley. For more information, call (337) 233-5832, or email perrin@plddo.com.

Louisiana authors Tina DeSalvo, author of “Elli,” and Stella Barcelona, author of “Deceived,” will sign copies of their books Sunday, May 10, at Bent Pages Bookstore and Coffeeshop in Houma. For information, visit

http://bentpagesbookstore.com/book-signing-may-10-2014/.

Louisiana Book News is written by Cheré Coen, the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “ExploringCajun Country: A Historic Guide to Acadiana” and co-author of “Magic’s in the Bag: Creating Spellbinding Gris Gris Bags and Sachets.” Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.

First installment in Louisiana Cajun and Creole Poetry series focuses on Amede Ardoin

             Former Poet Laureate of Louisiana and 2014 Louisiana Writer Award winner Darrell Bourque has just published a collection of inverted sonnets titled “If You Abandon Me, Comment Je Vas Faire: An Amédé Ardoin Songbook,” the first installment of The Louisiana Series of Cajun and Creole Poetry (La Série de Louisiane de Poésie des Acadiens et Créoles) with Yellow Flag Press.

            In this chapbook Bourque explores the life of Creole musician Amédé Ardoin, born in 1898 in St. Landry Parish and who pioneered Creole music. Ardoin was incarcerated at the mental institution in Pineville after being beaten in a racial assault sometime late in his life. He died on Nov. 3, 1942. Legendary Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee, his friend with whom he played and recorded, called Amédé Ardoin une chanson vivant, a living song.

            A portion of Bourque’s book will go toward creating a public commemorative marker placed in Ardoin’s community to honor his life and contribution to the Cajun and Creole culture.

            Bourque is professor emeritus of English at UL-Lafayette and is the author of several books including “Megan’s Guitar and Other Poems from Acadie.”

New releases

            Gary L. Stewart of Baton Rouge, vice president of Delta Tech Service of Louisiana, details searching for his father after being contacted by his birth mother and discovering startling news in “The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching For My Father ... And Finding The Zodiac Killer.” Writing with Susan Mustafa, Stewart alleges that his father is the Zodiac Killer, believed to have killed at least five people in Northern California in 1968 and 1969, murders that were never solved.

            John Gery, a  Research Professor of English and Seraphia D. Leyda Teaching Fellow at UNO, has published a collection of poems titled “Have At You Now!” Gery directs the Ezra Pound Center for Literature in Brunnenburg, Italy, and lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradović, and their son, Petar. "The poems in John Gery's ‘Have at You Now!’ are acted upon with the same verve and wit and parry and heart as that scene from Hamlet from which the title is taken,” said Lafayette poet Darrell Bourque. “These are the poems of a huge imagination and a huge intellect whose observations are at once as capable of being as fully engaged in the philosophical as in the familial. John Gery is a powerful traveler poet who counters experience with thought, form with idea, technique with delivery. Gery is one of the best poets writing today and I go to him repeatedly for guidance and direction. Have at You Now! is nothing short of a master class in how to make poems that matter."

            “Cast of Characters,” a selection of George Gurtner's New Orleans magazine columns of the same name, is expected to be released this month by Louisiana publisher Margaret Media. Dubbed “local color in and around the Big Easy,” it features more than 60 people — with photos — who make New Orleans home.

            Young Adult novelist Ruta Sepetys sets her latest novel, “Out of the Easy,” in 1950 New Orleans. Seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, which makes her want to flee the city. A mysterious death in the Quarter, however, leaves her tangled in an investigation.

            Michael Patrick Welch offers a look into New Orleans non-traditional side in “New Orleans: The Underground Guide.” Contents include where to get naked, how to make the most of Mardi Gras according to banjo player Geoff Douville, what to order from the Slavic menu at Siberia and where to find the New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival, among much more. Welch is the author of several books and has contributed to New Orleans publications as well as Salon, Columbia Journalism Review, McSweeney's, Oxford American, and Vice magazine.

Book events

            Ronlyn Domingue will read from and sign “The Chronicle of Secret Riven,” the Keeper of Tales Trilogy Book Two, at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 31 at Barnes & Noble Lafayette. Domingue is the author of “The Mercyof Thin Air” and “The Mapmaker’s War.”

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.