Poets Pelegrin and Fuller to read at Teche Center

Poets Alison Pelegrin and J Bruce Fuller will read from and sign their respective poetry collections at 6:30 p.m. Friday, April 26, at the Teche Center for the Arts in Breaux Bridge. This event is free and donations welcome.

Alison Pelegrin is the author of four poetry collections, most recently "Waterlines" (LSU Press 2016). Her chapbook "Our Lady of the Flood" was a winner of the Diode chapbook prize and was published in 2018. Pelegrin is the recipient of individual fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and her recent work has appeared in Tin House, Poetry East, and The Bennington Review. Pelegrin teaches at Southeastern Louisiana University and lives in Covington with her family.

J. Bruce Fuller is a Louisiana native. His chapbooks include "The Dissenter's Ground," "Lancelot" and "Flood" and his poems have appeared at The Southern Review, Crab Orchard Review, McNeese Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, and Louisiana Literature, among others. He has received scholarships from Bread Loaf, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and Stanford University, where he was a 2016-2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow. He is currently acquisitions editor at Texas Review Press.

For more information, visit the event's Facebook page here.

Louisiana Book News is written by award-winning author Chere Dastugue Coen, who writes Louisiana romances and mysteries under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Her first book in each series is FREE to download as an ebook, including "Emilie," book one of The Cajun Series, "Ticket to Paradise," book one of The Cajun Embassy series and "A Ghost of a Chance," the first Viola Valentine mystery.

Jorgensen book recalls Hot Wells, Louisiana

            When I was doing research for a book on the history of Forest Hill, I ran across mentions of a hot mineral springs located in Rapides Parish at Cotile Lake. I’m a fan of hot springs, so discovering Louisiana had one interested me greatly.

            Alas, the resort is no longer, demolished in 2007, but its story haunted me, no pun intended. Journalist Larry Jorgensen of Mansura relates the rise and fall of the Hot Wells resort in his book, “Hot Wells: A Louisiana Ghost.”

            The springs existed on private property but were “discovered” when a worker drilling for oil in 1913 washed his hands in waters that healed his eczema. A laboratory test proved there were several minerals in the hot springs and a hotel and spa were built to attract tourists.

            Over the years, visitors included boxing champion Jack Dempsey, musician Jay Chevalier and Gov. Earl Long, the latter of which had a financial interest in the town and springs. Earl’s brother, Gov. Huey P. Long, was said to have made his first political speech here.

            The state took over the property and for years struggled to make a profit. When the buildings and spring remained a liability, the buildings were razed, the spring tapped and the resort now only a memory to the folks who live in Hot Wells or who worked there.

            Jorgensen offers a short but concise and well-researched history that details the rise and fall of this Louisiana secret in the heart of the state. It’s a fascinating tale, one that includes thousands of dollars in a bathtub during the Earl Long administration, the insistence that selling alcohol might have changed the resort’s course and the attempt by the state to rival Hot Springs, Ark.

            Copies of Jorgensen’s book are available in the Alexandria area at Kent Plantation House, Atwood’s, Tunk’s Cypress Inn, Silver Dollar Pawn and Hastings; in the Boyce area at Lil’ Boos Country Store and Boone’s Drug Store; at Grant Hardware in Colfax; and in Avoyelles Parish at Avoyelles Office Supply and Treasures & in Marksville, JoJo’s Flowers in Bunkie, the Avoyelles Commission of Tourism office in Mansura and the Cottonport Museum.

Cherie Claire

            I'm honored to have my historical romance "Emilie" (first in a series and free to download) featured today at www.BookPebble.com. Check it out and sign up for free and bargain ebook deals. "Emilie" begins the Cajun Series of historical romances, written under my pen name of Cherie Claire. You can read more about the series, my contemporary series "The Cajun Embassy," book events, recipes, My Louisiana Home blog and more at http://www.cherieclaire.net/. Be sure and sign up for my newsletter.

Book news

J Bruce Fuller

Jenn Alandy Trahan

Two graduates of McNeese State University’s Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program have received 2016 Wallace Stegner Fellowships for the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University this fall. They are J. Bruce Fuller, a 2011 graduate, in poetry, and Jenn Alandy Trahan, a 2015 graduate, in fiction. These alumni follow two other McNeese MFA graduates who received fellowships — Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winner Adam Johnson (1996), who now teaches at Stanford, and Michael Shewmaker (2010), an award-winning poet who is also teaching at Stanford as a Jones Lecturer in poetry. A native of New Orleans, Fuller received a doctorate in English from UL-Lafayette in 2015 and is currently teaching there. A native of Houston, and a former resident of California, Trahan is currently teaching English as a visiting lecturer at McNeese.

NOLA lecture

            Janet Allured, professor of history and director of the Women’s Studies Program at McNeese, will discuss the late 20th century women’s rights movement in Louisiana beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Historic New Orleans Collection. The free lecture will take place at 533 Royal St. in the French Quarter. Allured is the author of the forthcoming book “Remapping Second-Wave Feminism: The Long Women’s Rights Movement in Louisiana, 1950–1997” (University of Georgia Press). The lecture is the second of three programs presented as part of THNOC exhibit, “Voices of Progress: Twenty Women Who Changed New Orleans,” presented as part of Nola4women’s Women of New Orleans: Builders and Rebuilders initiative. The final event, which will feature a conversation with political activists Dodie Smith-Simmons and author Sybil Haydel Morial, will begin at 2 p.m.  Saturday, Aug. 20. A reception with light refreshments will follow. Details about these and other events are available online at www.hnoc.org.

Manship honors

The LSU Manship School of Mass Communication will honor Alfred N. Delahaye, Craig Kelley and Charlie McBride and posthumously honor Jeffrey David Wright at its 42nd annual Hall of Fame Gala on Friday, Sept. 9. The ceremony will begin at 7 p.m. at Juban’s restaurant, 3739 Perkins Road in Baton Rouge. In addition to their numerous journalistic accolades, Kelley co-wrote a book on Peyton Manning titled, “A Quarterback for the Ages,” that is due out this fall. For more information, visit http://www.manship.lsu.edu/.

Book Events

Carrie Delatte will be signing and discussing her new thriller “Vidalia” Saturday, Aug. 13, at Fair Grinds Coffeehouse in New Orleans. For more information, visit https://www.facebook.com/carried.author.writer.

LSU Libraries Special Collections is offering the exhibit, “From Grand Village to Bluff City: 300 Years of Natchez History,” on view until Sept. 3.  In the library’s Lecture Hall is the exhibit, “Birds’ Eye View of LSU,” featuring University Archives aerial photographs spotlighting the evolution of the campus from its rural beginnings on former plantation land to today. For more information, visit http://www.lib.lsu.edu/special.

Cheré Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country.” She writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.

Linville's Fred Franklin pens impressive memoir with 'Souvenirs of a Childhood Interrupted'

            Growing up on a Linville farm with several brothers provided Fred Franklin with endless fun. But with all the adventures of raising animals, causing boyhood havoc and fishing and hunting in the rural woods was the abuse he suffered at the hands of an alcoholic father. Franklin relates his childhood, and the pieces of his father’s life he managed to research and gather, in his memoir, “Souvenirs of a Childhood Interrupted” (Dog Ear Publishing).

He begins with the summer of 1973 when his own life took a similar turn. As he paused driving home late one night, after drinking all day barbecuing, then at a state-border bar, Franklin recalls his childhood and the forces that brought him to that day. He first describes what he’s come to learn of his father committing murder and being sent to prison. When his mother and siblings couldn’t support themselves, even with the help of her parents, Franklin’s grandfather appealed to the judge to let Floyd Franklin out early. The appeal was granted.

What really happened that day when Floyd killed another, and his reasons for later physical and emotional abuse inflicted on his children and wife, are unclear. It’s this lack of rationality that haunts Fred Franklin for years. It was through this memoir that he achieves some form of clarity, and forgiveness, that helps him heal.

Franklin pens a well-written, captivating story with “Souvenirs,” although it’s not an easy story. He recalls his childhood in vivid detail, and residents of the Linville area will surely recognize places and people.

Frankin is a retired field office manager for a national pipeline construction company.

  

Correspondences: Une Fete

Darrell Bourque, Dayana Stetco and J. Bruce Fuller read from recent works of Yellow Flag Press from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 18, at NuNu Cultural Arts Collective in Arnaudville. “Correspondences: Une Fete” will include before and after visits to Little Big Cup and Grand Coteau Bistro, live entertainment at Bayou Teche Brewery and shopping and art exhibits at NuNu’s.

Bourque is a former Louisiana Poet Laureate and is releasing his second chapbook, “Where I Waited,” in The Louisiana Series of Cajun and Creole Poetry. Stetco is a ULL English professor, founder of the interdisciplinary theater ensemble The Milena Group and co-editor with Rita Costello of “Bateau Ivre, a Journal of Performance, Literature, and Art.” Her collection of plays, “The Falling: A Trilogy,” was released by Yellow Flag Press this past spring. Fuller, editor and publisher of Yellow Flag Press, is a Louisiana native and the winner of the Swan Scythe Chapbook Contest for his chapbook “Flood.” Fuller received his MFA from McNeese and his Ph.D. from ULL and is currently a 2016-2018 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University.

Yellow Flag Press has been part of the Vision Verse Project in Lake Charles and has published area poets Toby Daspit, Stella Nesanovich and Elizabeth Burke.

Southern bookstores

           I love a bookstore with a cat; nothing like perusing the book aisles and pausing to inflict love on a feline. At Alexander’s Books at 2001 Congress St. in Lafayette, there are cats everywhere. There are also books everywhere, from genre fiction and gardening to art books and Louisiana history. Since Alexander’s is a used bookstore, you can bring in books as credit toward books purchased at the store. Just give yourself plenty of time, because there’s lot to peruse and plenty of ears to scratch.

Book events

Aimee Broussard, author of “Picnics, Potlucks & Porch Parties” cookbook, published by Quail Ridge Press of Mississippi, will host a cooking demonstration from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans. Also at the museum, Father William Miller will offer a pre-Father’s Day tasting and exploration of beer and Greg Reggio, one of the 3 Taste Buds behind Zea’s, will host a tasting with beers from Zea Brewery beginning at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Rouses Culinary Innovation Center. The event is free with museum admission. Miller is the author of two books, “The Gospel According to Sam: Animal Stories for the Soul” and “The Beer Drinker’s Guide to God: The Whole and Holy Truth About Lager, Loving and Living.”  

Erin M. Greenwald discusses and signs “Marc-Antoine Caillot and the Company of the Indies in Louisiana Trade in the French Atlantic World” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Octavia Books, New Orleans. Greenwald is curator and historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection and the editor of “A Company Man: The Remarkable French-Atlantic Voyage of a Clerk for the Company of the Indies.”

Cheré Coen is the author of “Forest Hill, Louisiana: A Bloom Town History,” “Haunted Lafayette, Louisiana” and “Exploring Cajun Country.” She writes Louisiana romances under the pen name of Cherie Claire. Write her at cherecoen@gmail.com.