Caffery, author of “Traditional
Music in Coastal Louisiana” and currently a visiting professor in folklore
at Indiana University in Bloomington, uses rhythmic structure, styles and
narratives of Louisiana oral and song traditions with stories that range from
the freaky folklore of the loup garou to the heartfelt story of a father
playing imaginary dinosaurs with his daughter, based on benedictions used at
rural French weddings. Poems include an Irish Bend resident in love with a Native
American girl whom he abandons after the birth of their child. The child dies
and becomes the fearful feufollet, or swamp gases, until the youngest in town
attempts to “finish this thing.” There’s a sing-song poem relating old
superstitions and something humorous about two mischievous godparents named
Gabriel and Madeline with roaming eyes, among so many other wonderful tales.
Caffery offers insights into his
poetric subjects with explanations and folklore history. The feufollet, for
instance, comes from the old story of swamp gases being unbaptized children but
Caffery uses family genealogy to round out the story.
A founding member of the Red Stick
Ramblers and a longtime member of the band Feufollet, Caffery has been nominated
for a Grammy for his work on the Feufollet album “En Couleurs.” He has
also served as the 2013–14 Alan Lomax Fellow in Folklife Studies at the Library
of Congress.
ULL lectures
University of Louisiana at Lafayette
Writer-in-Residence Dr. John McNally will present the 20th Annual Gloria Fiero
Lecture at 11 a.m. Thursday in the Ducrest Guilfry Auditorium at Angelle Hall
on the UL campus. He will speak on “The Art of Failure,” addressing the
necessity and benefits of failure as a crucial part of the creative process. The
lecture is free and open to the public.
McNally is author or editor of 14
books, including three novels, “After the Workshop,” “The Book of Ralph” and “America’s
Report Card.” His short story collection “Troublemakers” was the winner of the
John Simmons Short Fiction Award and the Nebraska Book Award and “Ghosts of
Chicago” was named a Chicagoland Indie Bestseller and voted one of the top 20
fiction books of 2008 by readers of The Believer. His nonfiction books include
“The Creative Writer’s Survival Guide: Advice from an Unrepentant Novelist” and
“Vivid and Continuous: Essays on the Craft of Fiction,” both published the
University of Iowa Press. The Chicago native is also the author of four books
which will be published over the next three years: a young adult novel out next
month, “Lord of the Ralphs” historical novel, a book about failure and its
benefits and a collection of personal essays.
William
Pittman Andrews, executive director of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New
Orleans, will give the annual Flora Levy Lecture, hosted by the Department of
English, at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Angelle Hall. Andrews will speak on “George
Rodrigue: Painting to the Frame,” a phrase coined by Rodrigue referring to his
use of frames reclaimed from various sources. An exhibit of Rodrigue’s paintings
of former Flora Levy speakers is on loan from the UL Foundation and the
Rodrigue Foundation in New Orleans to the Paul and Lulu Hilliard Art Museum on
the UL-Lafayette campus until Jan. 2, 2016. For more information, call (337)
482-2278.
At the library
The Friends
of the Ouachita Public Library Book Sale will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Friday and Saturday at the West Ouachita Library on 188 Hwy. 546 (Exit 108
from I-20) in West Monroe.
Big Easy Read
“Readings
‘Round the Big Easy: A Celebration of National Reading Group Month” will
feature a host of authors beginning at 12:30 p.m. Saturday at the New Orleans
Museum of Art in City Park of New Orleans. Nancy Dixon, author of “New Orleans
Lit: 200 Years of New Orleans Literature,” will be the keynote speaker. Authors
include John Ed Bradley (“Call Me by My Name”), C.S. Harris (“Who Buries the
Dead: A Sebastien St. Cyr Mystery”), Sybil Morial (“Witness to Change: From Jim
Crow to Political Empowerment”), Tiffany Quay Tyson (“Three Rivers”), Kent
Wascom (“Secessia”), Karen White (“The Sound of Glass”) and Richard Wall, husband
of the late Carol Wall, author of “Mister Owita’s Guide to Gardening: How I
Learned the Unexpected Joy of a Green Thumb and an Open Heart.”
The event
includes a noon book club meet and greet, 1 p.m. keynote speech, 2 p.m. author
panel with Susan Larson, 3 p.m. booksigning in the museum gift shop and 3:30
p.m. afternoon tea with authors in Café NOMA. All events are free except for
the tea, which is $38 per person, registration required by Sept. 18. For
information or to register for the tea, mail a check to Sheila Cook, Librarian,
New Orleans Museum of Art, P.O. Box 19123, New Orleans, LA 70179.
Book events
Christina Vella signs “George
Washington Carver: A Life” at 6 p.m. Monday at Octavia Books in New Orleans.
Stuart Stevens discusses and signs
his book, “The Last Season: A Father, A Son and a Lifetime of College Football”
at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Garden District Book Shop of New Orleans.
Military historian, author and
authority on German U-boats C.J. Christ will discuss “World War II in the Gulf
of Mexico: Documenting a War Close to Our Shores” at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the
Jeanerette Museum, 500 E. Main St. in Jeanerette. Christ has published
hundreds of articles and regularly lectures on military issues. He will discuss
his years of research as he searched for the German submarine U-166 in the Gulf
of Mexico. This free program is more suitable for an adult audience. A
book signing will follow the event. For more information, call (337) 276-4408
or email
jeanerettemuseum@yahoo.com.
Festival of Words literary
organization hosts a multilingual open mic from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday at
Chicory’s Coffee and Café, 219 E. Martin Luther King Drive in Grand Coteau. The
free event features poems, songs and stories performed in different languages.
All ages welcome.
Elise Blackwell signs “The Lower
Quarter” at 6 p.m. Thursday at Octavia Books of New Orleans. Blackwell is
the author of “The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish” and “Hunger.”
George Sanchez reads and signs his
latest Jeff Chaussier New Orleans mystery “Explorations End” at 6 p.m. Thursday
at Garden District Book Shop in New Orleans.
New York Times best-selling author
Lea Michele signs her new book, “You First: Journal Your Way to Your
Best Life” at 4 p.m. Saturday at Garden District Book Shop. To receive a
wrist-band for this limited event, participants must purchase the book from
Garden District Book Shop after it goes on sale Tuesday.
Dixie Poché
of Lafayette celebrates Acadiana’s mom and pop groceries and restaurants in
“Classic Eateries of Cajun Country” and she will discuss the tradition of Cajun
boucheries in a book launch and food demonstration from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Saturday at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans. During the
food demo, guests may sample pork dishes such as boudin, hogs head cheese and
ponce prepared by Luke Deville of Teet’s Food Store from Ville Platte and
French bread from Lejeune’s French Bread of Jeanerette. Poché is a corporate
and travel writer and graduate of ULL in journalism.
The book has been re-released by Abrams as a 25th-anniversary celebratory book. And if the talents of these two don't sway you enough, the fearless message might.
Award-winning author and poet Lee Bennett Hopkins edits a collection of poetry accented by artwork in a gorgeous board book titled "World Make Way: New Poems Inspired by Art from the Metropolitan Museum of Art." There's "Cat Watching a Spider" by Julie Fogliano next to Oide Toko's painting of the same name, "Early Evening" by Charles Ghigna accented by Winslow Homer's "Boys in a Dory" and "Studio" by Marilyn Nelson with Kerry James Marshall's "Untitled (Studio)" in which an artist shapes a subject's face in preparation for being painted. Even the editor has a page, his "Endgame" poem coupled with "The Chess Players," a Liberale da Verona painting of 1475.
