Next year's Louisiana literary festivals

New Orleans Book Festival

March 19-21, 2020

Tulane University, New Orleans

https://www.facebook.com/nolabookfest/

The Festival will include both fiction and non-fiction authors in readings, panel discussions, symposia and keynote speeches, plus serve as an outlet for authors and readers to interact with each other in one of the most vibrant and culturally diverse cities in the world.

Festival events will take place on Tulane’s uptown campus, and there will be multiple activities throughout the weekend: panel discussions, keynote lectures, book fairs and workshops. Each day will have at least one major plenary session at which a leading author will be featured. Additionally, there will be Festival social events and sponsor activation opportunities at Tulane and other locations across the city.

Under the leadership of Cheryl Landrieu and Walter Isaacson, Tulane will host the Festival, and engage its community of scholars and students to participate in its events. Proceeds from the Festival will support the academic mission of Tulane.

For more information, including an updated schedule and list of authors and vendors as they become available, visit bookfest.tulane.edu.

Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival

March 25-29

New Orleans

http://tennesseewilliams.net/

The five-day literary arts festival is always held around March 26, the birthday of Tennessee Williams. Events include writing workshops and master classes by acclaimed writers, enlightening and entertaining literary panel discussions, theater events,  book fair, Tennessee Williams Tribute Reading, Tennessee Williams scholars conference,  literary walking tours, music events, Books & Beignets book club, culinary and cocktail events, interviews with legendary writers and actors, and much more.

Now in our 34th year, TWFest brings together over 100 contemporary writers, scholars, actors, musicians, and other artists for five days of literary revelry in the lush Bohemian world of New Orleans.

Books Along the Teche Literary Festival

April 3-5, 2020

New Iberia

https://booksalongthetecheliteraryfestival.com/

The Festival celebrates the literary talents of Acadiana with this year’s Great Southern Writer to be Osha Gray Davidson, a non-fiction storyteller using words, images and sounds online, in books and magazines or in theaters. Davidson creates podcasts, photography, blogs, lectures, and research to tell the stories he thinks are important. He’s also the author of eight books, and been honored by the New York Times Book Review, New York Public Library, Scripps Howard Institute on the Environment, Heinrich Bὄll Foundation of Berlin and his book, The Best of Enemies, was chosen as the selected book by both NCCU and Durham Reads. His movie by the same name will be featured at the Grand Theater, New Iberia, throughout the Festival.

Davidson will speak at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 4, and the presentation will include a question and answer session with the audience.

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.

More than 250 authors scheduled to appear at the 16th annual Louisiana Book Festival

The 16th Annual Louisiana Book Festival gathers more than 250 authors and presenters from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2, in downtown Baton Rouge’s Capitol Park with events and programming in the Louisiana State Capitol, State Library of Louisiana, Capitol Park Museum, Capitol Park Event Center, and in tents on neighboring streets. There will be more than 100 programs offered throughout the day, followed by book signings in the Barnes & Noble tent, where featured titles will also be available for purchase.

The festival begins with State Librarian Rebecca Hamilton honoring 2019 Louisiana Writer Award recipient Richard Campanella in the State Capitol. Campanella is a Tulane University School of Architecture professor and the author of 10 books and 200 publications on Louisiana and New Orleans geography.

Throughout the day there will be best-selling authors speaking, storytelling performances for children, live musical performances, cooking demonstrations and book-related exhibitors. A special program in the Senate Chamber this year celebrates the 10th anniversary of Little Free Library, with a panel attendee winning a Little Free Library donated by the Louisiana Library and Book Festival Foundation. Now in its 11th year, the One Book, One Festival program invites attendees to read Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” with Dr. Gary Richards leading the discussion at the festival.

I'll be moderating the Modern Day Romance: Love Finds a Way panel with authors Abby Jimenez ("The Friend Zone") and Casey McQuiston ("Red, White and Royal Blue") at 11:15 a.m. in Senate Committee Room A. I'm be one of several authors on the Building a Mystery: Creating a Series in Genre Fiction panel at 2:15 p.m. in Senate Committee Room F. The other mystery authors will be Laura Cayouette ("The Haunted Heirloom"), Sandra Bretting ("All Hats on Deck"), P.M. LaRose ("Beers Abroad: Peril in London") and Ellen Byron, moderator ("Fatal Cajun Festival").

For a full list of authors (including yours truly) along with programs and a downloadable schedule, visit LouisianaBookFestival.org.

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.

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.