A LA Maison, a hurricane recovery organization
dedicated to rebuilding communities and regreening Louisiana, has again received
a donation of tree seedlings (10,000!) from the Arbor Day Foundation and
we will traveling throughout South Louisiana distributing them. The 2010 schedule is:
Thursday, March 4: 10 a.m.
Moss Bluff Library, 261 Parish Road, Moss Bluff, and 2 p.m. Lake Charles Main
Library, 301 W. Claude St., Lake Charles.
Monday, March 8: 9 a.m.
to 11 a.m. Abbeville Main Library, 405
East St. Victor St., Abbeville, and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Maurice Library,
8901 Maurice Ave., Maurice.
Tuesday, March 9: 1 p.m.
to 3 p.m. Erath Library, 111 West Edwards St., Erath
Wednesday, March 10: 9
a.m. to 11 a.m. Kaplan Library, 815 N. Cushing Ave., Kaplan, and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Gueydan Library, 704 10th St., Gueydan.
Saturday, March 13:
1 p.m. to 3 p.m. outside Casa Azul gift shop, 234 Martin Luther King Drive,
Grand Coteau.
Monday, March 15:
9 a.m. to noon Bayou Terrebonne
Waterlife Museum, 7910 Park Ave., Houma, and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Jean Lafitte National Historical Park
and Preserve, 314 St. Mary St., Thibodaux.
Sunday, March 28:
12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. Unitarian Church of Baton Rouge, 8470 Goodwood Blvd.,
Baton Rouge.
For more information, contact Cheré Coen at 984-0754.
2010 Events
The Writers Guild of Acadiana will host an all-day workshop on novel writing by New York Times best-selling author Cherry Adair from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 23, 2010, at Grace Community Church in Lafayette. The cost is $50 members, $60 nonmembers and includes lunch. To register, visit the Guild Web site at WritersGuildofAcadiana.org.
The Jubilee Jambalaya Writer’s
Conference will be 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday, April 9-10, 2010, at
the Terrebonne Parish Library in Houma. For information, visit www.terrebonne.lib.la.us.
The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival will be March 24-28 in New Orleans.
The Louisiana Book Festival will be Saturday, Oct. 30, 2010.
Looking for some scary books to read about Louisiana? Here are a few to get you in the Halloween spirit:
Paranormal investigator Brad
Duplechien recounts how he became a ghost hunter, including some horrifying experiences along the way, in Paranormal Uncensored:
A Raw Look at Louisiana Ghost Hunting.
Forever
Dixie: A Field Guide to Southern Cemeteries & Their Residents by
Douglas Keister includes Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.
Ghost
Hunter’s Guide to New Orleans by Jeff Dwyer takes a look at the many hauntings of the Crescent City and environs.
Louisiana
Haunted Forts by Elaine Coleman is a comprehensive guide to the many military sites throughout the state.
Fictions lovers will enjoy a good scare by Deborah Leblanc of Lafayette, who has penned several horror novels set in Acadiana.
For kids, Beverly Vidrine offers a Halloween Alphabet book that's also sweetly illustrated.
Keith McGowan, who spent time in
New Orleans, offers a modern-day retelling of Hansel and Gretel in The
Witch’s Guide to Cooking with Children.
Novelist
Tim Gautreaux honored with Louisiana Writer Award
Award-winning
author and former SLU professor Tim Gautreaux received the Louisiana
Writer Award on Oct. 17 at the Louisiana Book Festival, presented by the Louisiana Center for the Book. Gautreaux was honored for his "extraordinary contributions to the state’s
literary heritage."The
Louisiana Writer Award is given periodically to recognize outstanding
contributions to the literary and intellectual life of Louisiana. Past
recipients include children’s author William Joyce, poets Yusef Komunyakaa and
William Jay Smith; historian Carl A. Brasseaux, director of UL's Center for
Louisiana Studies; novelists James Lee Burke, Ernest J. Gaines, Shirley Ann
Grau and Elmore Leonard; and scholar Lewis P. Simpson. Gautreaux
is the author of two collections of short stories (Same Place, Same Things and Welding with Children) and three novels (The Next Step in the Dance,The
Clearing and The Missing). His
short stories have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, GQ and
other magazines and his essays published in The Oxford
American and Preservation Magazine.
The Southern Indie Booksellers have
selected their “Fall Okra Picks,” books they recommend in a variety of genres
that are Southern in nature. They are:
Fiction: A Quiet Belief in Angels by R.J. Ellory, A Separate Country by Robert Hicks, Going Away Shoes by Jill McCorkle, Rebel Yell: A Novel by Alice Randall Bloomsbury, The Better Part of Darkness by Kelly
Gay, The Widow and the Tree by Sonny
Brewer, Travel Guide for Reckless Hearts
by N.M. Kelby and Wyatt’s Revenge by
H. Terrill Griffin.
Nonfiction:
Give My Poor Heart Ease by William
Ferris, The Long Snapper: A Second
Chance, a Super Bowl, a Lesson for Life by Jeffrey Marx and The Soul Tree: Poems and Photos of the
Southern Appalachians by Laura Hope-Gill.
Children’s & Young Adult: Black Angels by Linda Beatrice Brown and
The Secret World of Walter
Anderson by Hester Bass.
Barbara Colley's January 2010 book,
Dusted to Death, has been selected as
a Featured Alternate in the Mystery Guild’s January cycle. Colley’s mysteries
are set in the New Orleans Garden District and feature a cleaning woman as its
heroine.
Susan
Fleet's suspense thriller set in New Orleans, Absolution, won the 2009 Premier Book Award for Best Novel of the Year
in the category of mystery/thriller/suspense.
Award winners
Mo
Willems, a children’s author and illustator of New Orleans, has won the annual
Children’s Choice Book Award for the kindergarten through second grade category
for his The Pigeon Wants a Puppy! The
awards are voted on by children and teens in bookstores and school libraries
nationwide and at BookWeekOnline.com.
Two Bobbies by authors Kirby Larson and
Mary Netherly will illustrations by Jean Cassels of New Orleans is a finalist
in the children’s category of the SIBA awards by the Southern Independent
Bookseller Association.
Johnson wins AROHO Gift of Freedom grant
Barb Johnson of New Orleans has
been awarded the biennial Gift of Freedom award by A Room of Her Own foundation
for women writers and artists. Based on Virginia Wolf’s statement that a woman
needs “a room of her own” in order to write, the award helps a working writer
get the help she needs in order to fulfill a project.The two-year Gift of Freedom grant
is $50,000. Johnson
entered the MFA program at UNO at age 47 and during her time there won the
Robert F. Gibbons Award, The Svenson Award for Fiction, The Gulf Coast Teachers
of Creative Writing Award, Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers,
and a grant from The Astraea Foundation. She has been a finalist for the Faulkner/Wisdom
Prize in short fiction and her short story, “St. Luis of Palmyra,” will be part
of Harper Collins’s collection of stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky titled A Disgraceful Affair. In the fall,
Harper Collins will also release Johnson’s first book, a collection of short
stories titled More of This World or
Maybe Another. She lives in New Orleans where
she volunteers with Rebuilding Together. During her two years as a Gift of
Freedom recipient, she will complete her first novel.
Darrell Bourque
Imagining Lincoln
The Louisiana Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission will launch a series of poetry readings as part of the nation’s varied commemoratives honoring the 16th president of the United States, according to poet Darrell Bourque, director of “Imagining Lincoln: The Louisiana Poetry Project.” Louisiana writers will present programs throughout the state during the week of Lincoln’s birthday, Feb. 12, and throughout his bicentennial year. One of those commemoratives will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 12) at Casa Azul Gifts in Grand Coteau and will feature poets reading poems written by Abraham Lincoln, poetry by other poets who have written about Abraham Lincoln and original poetry by the performers. Anticipated poets include Darrell Bourque, Bret Bernard, Sam Irwin, Sidney Creaghan, Patrice Melnick and Olan Thibodeaux.
The Southern Review Announces 4th Annual Literary Award Winners From LSU PR
BATON ROUGE – In 2005, The Southern Review
established three literary awards honoring the literary figures who
played defining roles in the journal’s history. These awards – The
Eudora Welty Prize in Fiction, The Cleanth Brooks Prize in Nonfiction
and The Robert Penn Warren Prize in Poetry – are given annually to the
best short story, best work of nonfiction and best poem or group of
poems published in The Southern Review during the previous volume year.
The 2008 winners are listed below.
The Eudora Welty Prize in Fiction:
“The Inventor, 1972” by Bonnie Jo Campbell, published in the winter 2008 issue, Vol. 44, No. 1
The Cleanth Brooks Prize in Non-Fiction:
“The Case for the Six-Month Bullet” by Capt. Mike Carlson, published in the summer 2008 issue, Vol. 44, No. 3
The Robert Penn Warren Prize in Poetry:
“Meditation on Loss” by Ed Falco, published in the winter 2008 issue, Vol. 44, No. 1
New history books look at 'German Coast'
Two new books have been published that deal with the history of the "German Coast," the parishes just upriver from New Orleans that were settled by German immigrants."200 Years of River Parishes’ History" by Judy Creekmore (Times-Picayune) is a compilation of the “Celebrating 200 Years” columns Creekmore wrote for the River Parishes edition of the New Orleans newspaper. The book includes the importance of the River Parishes to the development of New Orleans, the influx of Acadian refugees after the exile from Canada and the unique culture, crops and traditions of this historic area.
To purchase a signed copy, send $10 plus $3.75 postage and handling to:
Judy Creekmore, 213 Bedford St., LaPlace, LA 70068
The River Road Historical Society has produced "Destrehan: The Man, The House, The Legacy," written by Eugene D. Cizek and John Lawrence with photographs by Richard Sexton and edited by Louise Hoffman. Jean Baptiste Destrehan arrived in Louisiana from France at the beginning of the colony and became treasurer. The plantation in the town of Destrehan, along the River Road, was built by a free man of color and was the home of his heirs. The book sells for $39.95 and is available at Octavia Books in New Orleans.
SIBA Book Award winners for 2008
The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) announced the winners of its annual SIBA Book Awards, which celebrate the best of Southern literature in 2008. Winner are "Garden Spells" by Sarah Addison Allen, fiction; "The House on Boulevard Street" by David Kirby of Baton Rouge, published by LSU Press, poetry; "A Love Affair with Southern Cooking" by Jean Anderson, cookbooks; "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" by Barbara Kingsolver, non-fiction and "Deep in the Swamp" by Donna Bateman, illustrated by Brian Lies, children’s literature. (The House on Boulevard Street was also a 2007 National Book Award Finalist for Poetry and a 2007 Gold Medal in Poetry from the Florida Book Awards.) The SIBA award is voted on by Southern independent booksellers. For a book to be eligible, it must be set in the South and published within the calendar year. Only SIBA-member booksellers can submit nominations and vote on the selection of finalists. In 2008, for the first time, winners were selected by a jury of SIBA booksellers. Louisiana finalists included "Br’er Rabbit Captured" by Jean Cassels of New Orleans and "Chicken Dance" by Jacques Couvillon of Cow Island, children’s literature and "In Praise of Pecans" by June Jackson of Winnsboro, cookbook category.
Cadeau wins design award
Terry M. Thibodeaux and Ann Davidson's book cover of "Catherine's Cadeau," designed by Terry's son Mark, received a 1st Place accolade in the American Design Awards fall contest in the Book Cover Design category. This international contest had almost 1500 entries, with L. Ron Hubbard's re-release of "Dianetics" taking 2nd Place and an entry from Taiwan taking 3rd Place. Congratulations!! For the awards site, click here. The story follows Michelle LeBlanc who searches for her cousin, Monique, who has disappeared from the Grand Pré historical park in Nova Scotia. Michelle learns that Monique has traveled back in time and is living through the horrific deportation of Acadians. “The story, in which a contemporary Cajun character goes to Nova Scotia where she is transported back in time to 1755 to live through the horrific Grand Dérangement gives us a chance to tell the historical origins of the Cajun people as well as to shine a light on the uniqueness and beauty of our culture,” Thibodeaux wrote by email. Davidson came up with the idea and the two worked out the novel by long distance, never meeting face-to-face. “We wrote this book based on Ann’s story idea entirely via e-mail and a few phone calls,” Thibodeaux explained. Terry Thibodeaux grew up near Crowley and attended Midland High School.
Introducing Margaret Media, Inc.
Margaret Media is a publishing company located in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. Their books include:
A collection of short stories, "Down at the End of the River," by Baton Rouge writer Angus Woodward
A photo tour of an historic house in Plaquemine, LA, "Marrietta's House: A Grandmother's Cottage" by Marietta's grandson J.E. Bourgoyne with photos by J.G. Tyburski
An historic romance, "Matters of the Heart: A Creole Love Story" by Covington author Mary M. Culver
A guide to films made in New Orleans, "New Orleans Goes to the Movies: Film Sites in the French Quarter and Beyond" by Metairie movie buff Alan T. Leonhard.
Owner Mary Gehman has also published a series of books: "Women and New Orleans," "The Free People of Color of New Orleans" and "Touring Louisiana's Great River Road."
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Center for Cultural & Eco-Tourism presented a symposium, “Have Books, Will Travel: Literary Tourism in the Gulf South,” on Friday, Oct 10, at the Acadiana Center for the Arts in Lafayette. The conference focused on literary tourism and how to encourage tourists coming to Louisiana to visit places where our state’s writers have lived and worked. The one-day symposium included tourism and literary experts and writers who have created “literary trails” throughout towns, regions, states or the Gulf South. Participants include Patty Suchy, who operates a travel company specializing in the literary sites of Ireland and Great Britain; Jan Turnquist, executive director of Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House; Mary Kathryn Millner of the Oxford (Miss.) Convention and Visitor’s Bureau; Susan Perry of the Alabama Humanities Foundation, who will speak on the launch of the Southern Literary Trail planned for 2009 and Georgann Eubanks of North Carolina, who is creating guidebooks on the state’s literary heritage. For information, visit University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Center for Cultural & Eco-Tourism.
Eleanor Cocreham
On Oct. 11 several authors sold books at Houmas House for the annual Awesome Art Signing 2008. Authors included Sylvia Rochester, Tammy Riviere, Josephine Templeton, Honor Cummings, Connie Rachael, Elaine Grant and Eleanor Cocreham.
Elaine Grant
Honor Cummings
Josephine Templeton
Sylvia Rochester
The Heart of Louisiana chapter of Romance Writer's of America hosted its second annual Author's Luncheon on Sept. 20 in Baton Rouge. Keynote speakers were authors
Candice Proctor (aka C.S. Harris and one-half of pen name C.S. Graham),
Steven Harris and Hollis Gillespie. At left are the authors who attended. At bottom are the 2008 officers of Heartla.
Photo by Sandra Morris
Heartla Officers 2008
On Aug. 29, on the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the eve of Gustav making landfall, we performed "The Exile of Joe Gagliano," a one-act play by Cheré Coen about family life in the aftermath of the storms of 2005, directed by Bruce Coen. Before the performance, several outstanding writers from Acadiana participated in an open mic. We thank everyone for coming out and sharing their pieces on life in the hurricane lane. We hope everyone in the state is safe and sound with the lights restored. We also hope Ike will go away!!
Last Night's Dream
Rodger Kamenetz, professor of English, philosophy
and religious studies at LSU and certified dream therapist, was interviewed by Oprah Winfrey about the importance of
dreams as a part of her new XM Radio program, “Oprah’s Soul Series.”
Kamenetz’s latest book, “The History of Last Night’s Dream,” (Harper
One) is now in paperback release.
I just got back from the Romance Writers of America national convention in San Francisco and what a roller coaster of information and entertainment that was! I wrote about my experiences and the Louisiana authors who attended in the Aug. 13 issue of The Times of Acadiana. The link will only be live for a week, but you can read it as a PDF here.
Several Louisiana authors have been picked as finalists for the The Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance's 2008 SIBA Book Award. The finalists are:
Children's Br’er Rabbit Captured by Jean Cassels* Chicken Dance, Jacques Couvillon*
Cooking After the Hunt by John Folse* In Praise of Pecans by June Jackson* Savoir Faire by Pat Paternostro
Fiction Crawfish Mountain by Ken Wells Landsman by Peter Charles Melman* The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish by Elise Blackwell*
Nonfiction Bagels & Grits: A Jew on the Bayou by Jennifer Ann Moses* Creole Houses by John Lawrence* It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium by John Ed Bradley Rise of the Cajun Mariners: The Race for Big Oil by Woody Falgoust
Books having Louisiana connections that are finalists are: A Love Affair with Southern Cooking by Jean Anderson Women of Magdelene by Rosemary Poole-Carter House on Boulevard St. by David Kirby (LSU Press)
*The book is mentioned or reviewed on this Web site
Third Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Literary Contest (2008)
The Southern Louisiana (SOLA) Chapter of the Romance Writers of America held its 3rd Annual Dixie Kane Memorial Literary Contest and the winners are:
Short Contemporary: First Place Andrew Comes Home by Philip L. Levin Second Place Light the Fire by Mary Stahlke Third Place Shifting Sands by Karen Dodd
Romantic Suspense: First Place Body Language by Robin S. Sorrentino Second Place Got Lola on my Mind by Don Wicks Third Place Queen Of Envy by Madeline Vann
Single Title Contemporary: First Place Whatever It Takes by Louise Knott Ahern Second Place Barn Dance by Vicki Bendau Third Place Dealer’s Choice by Anne Krist
Historical: First Place Quiet As The Grave by Marilyn Robbins Second Place Come Spy With Me by Bethany Miller Cole Third Place Upon A Moonlit Sea by Jennifer Bray-Weber (tied with) Waltz With A Stranger by Valerie M. Schwager
Paranormal: First Place Better Dead by Pamela Kopfler Second Place Time Hunter by Nancy Litzau Third Place Shrine of the Heavens by Shauna Roberts
Novel With Romantic Elements: First Place Ebon Wings by John David Roundtree Second Place Is It Safe? by Jerol Anderson Third Place Loves Leaves No One Behind by Claudia Pemberton
The North Louisiana Storytellers (NOLA) and Authors of Romance held their annual conference Feb. 29-March 1 in Shreveport. Among the editors and agents attending were Cori Deyoe, Three Seas Literary Agency; Lucienne Diver, Spectrum Literary Agency; Chrys Howard, Howard Publishing; Wanda Ottewell, Harlequin; Elaine Spencer, The Knight Agency and Tessa Woodward, Avon. Above, attending the conference are, from left, Cheré Coen. Connie Rachal and Elaine Grant.
