1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion

GETTING TO YES: PITCHING AND SUBMITTING TO MAGAZINES AND JOURNALS

How do you know when a piece—or an idea—is ready to go out into the world? And how do you decide where to send it? Editors from journals publishing everything from poetry and fiction to graphic narrative and long-form essays will share the ins and outs of getting your work accepted, edited, and into readers’ hands. Authors themselves, they know the struggle. Miah Jeffra, co-founder of Foglifter Press, professor, and author of The Violence Almanac, will share advice on pitching essays and CNF with Boyce Upholt, founding editor of Southlands and author of The Great River. In addition, Denne Michelle Norris, editor-in-chief of Electric Literature and author of When The Harvest Comes, and Timothy Schaffert, editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner and author of The Titanic Survivors’ Book Club, will share what makes a submission stand out from the slush. Jack B. Bedell, editor of Louisiana Literature and former Louisiana poet laureate, will moderate.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion

THE SHAPE OF OUR LIVES: MEMOIR’S MANY FORMS

“Was this what I wanted, to fission myself into bits?” Michael Lowenthal writes in his memoir in essays, Place Envy. To understand our lives, we must sometimes explode them, putting each fragment under the microscope, or explore them through investigation or reportage. Joining Lowenthal in conversation are Joshua Wheeler, author of the radioactive essay collection Acid West, about his New Mexican homeland; Gaar Adams, whose Guest Privileges—half-memoir, half-reportage—tells the story of queer community, migration, and desire around the Persian Gulf; and Jordan LaHaye Fontenot, who investigates the 1983 murder of her great-grandfather in Home of the Happy. Gil Z. Hochberg, author of the memoir My Father, the Messiah, will moderate.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom. $10 or Lit Pass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion

LIVES ILLUSTRATED: THE ART OF BIOGRAPHY IN GRAPHIC NOVELES

Graphic novels have transformed how we tell true stories—merging vivid artwork with narrative depth to bring real lives to the page. This panel explores the art of creating biographies that meld historical accuracy and visual imagination. A. Angélique Roché, author of First Freedom: The Story of Opal Lee and Juneteenth and Nick Weldon, editor of Monumental:  Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana join moderator Megan Holt to discuss how the medium challenges and expands our understanding of nonfiction storytelling.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion

TAKE ME TO THE SOURCE! A RESEARCH BOOTCAMP FOR ALL WRITERS

A writer’s work has many wellsprings; archives and news sites, museums and YouTube, used bookstores and gossip mills can all be fonts of fact and inspiration. But how do you know where to start digging? And, once you’ve found yourself in a research rabbit hole, how do you get out? A multi-genre panel of writers will discuss where to find the facts you’re looking for and how to weave them into your work. Journalist and historian Daniel Brook researched his new book, The Einstein of Sex, while in Berlin on an Ina Caro Research/Travel Fellowship. He will be joined by Ethan Brown, who uses his investigative skills both as a journalist and a death row mitigation specialist; his most recent book is Murder on the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8? Miles Harvey, prize-winning author of both fiction and non-fiction, has turned to the short form in The Registry of Forgotten Objects, and Delaney Nolan, a journalist, essayist, and poet, has just published her speculative debut novel Happy Bad. Robert W. Fieseler, journalist and author of American Scare and Tinderbox, will moderate.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom. $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45—Literary Discussion

HOME AND AWAY: CREATING THE SPACES OF HISTORICAL FICTION

A place is more than its geography or architecture or streets: it is the histories woven into its molecules, a truth acknowledged and explored by these four New Orleans-based authors. Jess Armstrong is the author of the Ruby Vaughn murder mysteries, which follow an American heiress in postwar Britain and her occult-tinged investigations. Tulane professor Ladee Hubbard’s fiction explores civil rights, superpowers, and the suburbs in timelines ranging from early 20th century America to the Obama years in novels such The Rib King and collections like The Last Suspicious Holdout. Christopher Louis Romaguera’s poetry, stories, and translations—most recently Charras—connect the greater Caribbean to his adopted hometown of New Orleans and beyond. And LSU professor Joshua Wheeler takes readers into the surrealities and strangeness of the American Southwest in essay collections like Acid West and novels like High Heaven. Moderated by Adam Karlin, author of Luna & the Heart of the Forest and four editions of the Lonely Planet guide to New Orleans.

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Literary Discussion

DEAD RECKONING: DEBUT NOVELISTS

Writers’ first books are often our most personal, the result of years of grappling with the big questions asked by our own (extremely examined) lives: What kind of a future can we have on this hobbled planet? How can we love the flawed humans around us? What should we do with our trauma—or our grief? Five debut novelists will discuss where such reckoning has led them, in literature and in life. The newest literary star from Mississippi (and now New Orleans) Addie Citchens tells the story of one upstanding Delta family’s struggle with the monster in their midst in her audacious debut, Dominion, while in her Southern Gothic novel, Sister Creatures, Laura Venita Green reinvents the rural Louisiana of her childhood to spin a tale of haunting—and the impossibility of returning home. Happy Bad, by Delaney Nolan, takes us into the desert of the near future, when a group of troubled girls must evacuate their treatment facility in search of safety, while Denne Michele Norris and Issa Quincy‘s characters are burdened by the past. In Norris’ debut When the Harvest Comes, a new marriage is challenged by the death of one groom’s estranged father, while Quincy’s Absence is motivated by memory: a poem read to the narrator in childhood recurs, connecting the lives of a beloved schoolteacher, a grieving sister, and a prodigal son through the theme of loss. Moderated by novelist C. Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion

THE IMPORTANCE OF FEMALE VOICES IN CRIME FICTION

Presented by the Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction

From intrepid sleuths to villainesses embracing their “feminine rage,” the feminine shows up in crime fiction in ways that are powerful, shocking, and cathartic. These panelists have reclaimed the mystery genre from hardboiled noir to nail-biting thrillers and infused them with their own unique voices. Maureen Corrigan, the distinguished book critic for Fresh Air and the Washington Post, moderates a discussion with bestselling authors Kristen L. Berry, Margot Douaihy, Cheryl A. Head, and J.M. Redmann, as they talk about feminist aspects of crime writing.

Hotel Monteleone, Riverview Room, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion

REMEMBERING ARTIST GEORGE DUREAU

New Orleans Painter/photographer George Dureau’s career spanned more than half a century.  Reflecting on Dureau’s life and legacy will be gallery owner Arthur Roger; Jarret Lofstead, who produced a documentary on the artist; University of California (Irvine) English Professor Jonathan Alexander; Brian Sands, performing arts editor for Ambush Magazine, and Doug MacCash, arts and culture reporter for The Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate. Moderated by WYES-TV host/documentary producer Peggy Scott Laborde.

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion

WRITING LIFE INTO LANGUAGE: THE CRUCIBLE OF CRAFT

A writer’s material—for fact and for fiction—is mined from lived experience. But what we have lived and learned transforms as it passes into language, a transformation that raises questions about truth and form, privacy and compassion. Justin Torres, who burst onto the scene in 2011 with his intimate novel of boyhood, We the Animals, joins Michael Cunningham, whose forthcoming memoir, Unsayable, delves into these questions of language and life. Joining them in conversation are Christine Ma-Kellams, who brings her work as a psychologist to bear on her novel, The Band, and in personal essays about everything from her Costco addiction to her commute, and Cammie McGovern, who has made a career of writing books about and for children with disabilities, such as her 2021 memoir Hard Landing about her autistic son’s transition to adulthood. Miles Harvey, author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects, will moderate.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion

MY NORTH STAR: TENNESSEE WILLIAMS’ INFLUENCE ON OTHER WRITERS

This panel will be a conversation among three of the many writers who have been influenced by Williams’ life and work. When someone is influenced by a great writer, it doesn’t mean they write exactly like that person or imitate their style. What they most often get is inspiration, beauty, and insight, and great writers are sometimes a beacon of hope for other writers. Novelist Christopher Castellani will share how Williams’ life story inspired him to write the novel Leading Men; Jonathan Alexander will talk about the ways in which Williams’ writing has inspired his essays and memoirs, such as Dear Queer Self; and playwright Martin Sherman, author of the memoir On the Boardwalk, as well as Bent and dozens of other plays and screenplays, will speak about how Williams’ plays and life were guideposts along the way to finding his voice as a fellow playwright. Moderated by Thomas Keith, consulting editor for New Directions.

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27

2:30 – 3:45 PM—SAS Writer’s Craft

EROTICA LAID BARE: WRITING SEX THEY WON’T FORGET—JERRY L. WHEELER 

Are your characters looking to get lucky, but you can’t get them to first base? Join award-winning erotica writer and editor Jerry L. Wheeler as he uses a series of guided writing prompts involving your senses guaranteed to put your creations in the mood for love. Bring your imaginations and something to write with, and you’ll craft a perfect five-line paragraph of erotic prose. Anything goes and usually does, but be sure to leave your inhibitions at the door. Wheeler is the editor of seven anthologies of gay erotica for Bold Strokes Books, Wilde City Press, and other publishers. His collection of short fiction and essays, Strawberries and Other Erotic Fruits was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award in 2012, and he is the author of the BookFest Spring 2025 first place award-winner for LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction, Mercedes General.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal C.

Included in SAS Weekend Registration or $25

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion

CONTROLLED CHAOS: FINDING FORM THROUGH REVISION

How does one bring an initial idea/impulse/sketch to final draft? This panel, made up of writers of fiction and nonfiction, short and long form works, includes Robert Olen Butler, Michael Cunningham, Cammie McGovern, and Timothy Schaffert. They will discuss their views of revision: is it a balance between control and creativity? When do you honor the “nonconforming oddities” and put them to the test? When do you expand—following what’s interesting, surprising, and worthy of exploration? When do you contract—cutting what isn’t earning its keep, tightening focus, and improving pacing?  How do these writers re-see a draft again and again, how do they decide what belongs, and how do they know when it’s time to let the work go. Moderated by novelist and co-author of the craft book The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre, Matthew Clark Davison.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion

THE TALENT THAT SURVIVES—EDITING TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Because he was so prolific and left behind such a massive amount of writing, quite a bit of previously unpublished material by Tennessee Williams—plays, poems, essays, stories, and letters—has been published after his death, over the last forty years ago, for the first time. How is the material chosen? Who makes the final decisions? How is it edited? Are there standards or guidelines for publication?  Where does the material come from? These are some of the issues that will be discussed by Margit Longbrake, Senior Editor at the Historic New Orleans Collection; Tom Mitchell, theater director and Professor Emeritus at the University of Illinois; and Thomas Keith, Consulting Editor for New Directions Publishing and Professor of Theater at Pace University, who have all edited Williams’ previously unpublished work. Jef Hall-Flavin will moderate.

Sponsored by Helen Ingram.

Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion

WRITING AS PRACTICE: THE USES OF SPIRITUALITY IN THE CREATIVE LIFE

“Writing is a form of prayer,” Franz Kafka once wrote. Both rituals require contemplation, discipline and solitude; both are aimed at transcendence. This panel will look at how a sense of spirituality informs the creative process—and how the creative process comprises a kind of spirituality in and of itself. Charles Baxter, whose most recent essay collection, Wonderlands, discusses craft and fantasy, will be in conversation with Olivia Clare Friedman, whose new poetry collection, An Arm Fixed to a Wing, explores the desire to recover awe in the everyday. Joining them will be Rodger Kamenetz, whose Seeing into the Life of Things offers us rituals to help return the sacred to our lives. Miles Harvey, author of The Registry of Forgotten Objects, will moderate.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

2:30 – 3:45 PM—Literary Discussion

LIVING THROUGH IT: EXPLORING PRESUMPTIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND DYSTOPIAN NARRATIVES IN OUR MODERN-DAY WORLD

In this panel, novelists Moira Crone, Delaney Nolan, Olivia Clare Friedman, and Vanessa Saunders will discuss writing dystopian fiction in the face of climate catastrophes in the Gulf South. Moderated by NOCCA students Quinn Schwab, Alejandra Guzman, and Carly Mathas, panelists will delve into the possibilities, challenges, and rewards of writing in this genre.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion

CULTURAL TREASURES: NEW ORLEANS’ HISTORIC SOPHISTICATION IN MUSIC, DANCE, AND VISUAL ART

This panel explores New Orleans’ remarkable history as a sophisticated center of the arts in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period, New Orleans was home to highly respected and internationally acclaimed musical composers, ballet dancers, and theatrical productions, as well as a superior level of painters and furniture artisans. Many of the varied and talented artists reflect New Orleans’ sizable community of Free Persons of Color, as well as the city’s ties to Latin America, the Caribbean, and France, thereby distinguishing the community’s cultural exceptionalism within the United States. The panel is led by historian Dr. Molly Mitchell of the University of New Orleans, and will feature Givonna Joseph of OperaCréole, Nina Bozak of the Historic New Orleans Collection, Katie Burlison of the Historic Hermann-Grima Gallier House, and Charles D. Chamberlain, author of New Orleans, A Concise History of an Exceptional City (LSU 2025).

Supported by the Herman and Ethel Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27

11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Literary Discussion

HARD DRINKS, HARDER INK: WRITING NEW ORLEANS NOIR

New Orleans can be a difficult place to write. Poet and essayist Benjamin Morris will moderate a panel exploring the challenges of bringing this unique American city to life. Tom Andes’ Wait There Till You Hear from Me features a reluctant detective searching for his wealthy fiancée’s missing brother. Ariadne Blayde’s Ash Tuesday uses a modern twist on the Southern Gothic to explore the French Quarter’s culture through its notorious ghost tours. Bill Loehfelm’s Maureen Coughlin novels take the perspective of a white, working-class woman from Staten Island who becomes a New Orleans cop. And P.M. Raymond’s short story collection, Things Are As They Should Be, explores the city through the lens of psychological horror. These writers will discuss how they use noir fiction to bring fresh perspectives to writing about a city that can’t help but be a character itself.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27

10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion

NEW ORLEANS AS A HOME FOR WRITERS

This was the first panel discussion presented at the Festival in 1987 with tickets costing $2. It was repeated in 2007, and both times New Orleans poet Ralph Adamo was the moderator.

New Orleans is known as a city that inspires and nurtures writers, as it did Tennessee Williams. For the third time in forty years, we’ve gathered a group of writers to discuss those distinctive elements which made the city so congenial to their creative spirits: C. Morgan Babst, whose fiction and non-fiction paint a vivid picture of the city at its best and its worst; Louisiana Poet Laureate Gina Ferrara, known for her own work and for hosting a monthly Poetry Buffet reading series for nearly twenty years; bestselling and multi-award winning fiction writer Maurice Carlos Ruffin, whose work captures so many distinct views of New Orleans; Mona Lisa Saloy, Louisiana Poet Laureate 2021-2023, whose poetry brings Black Creole culture to life on the page; and Ralph Adamo, who returns to moderate this panel for a third time, and brings nearly fifty years of published poetry to the New Orleans literary legacy.

Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27
4 – 5:00 PM—Special Event
THRUMMING TO THE WORK OF ART: A READING
We’re thrilled to present a reading of established and award-winning authors. Immerse yourself in imaginative worlds, engrossing characters, and powerful and unique voices. Robert Olen Butler is a Pulitzer Prize winning author known for his powerful American fiction and short story collections. He was also awarded the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature. Michael Cunningham received the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel The Hours, as well as the PEN/Faulkner Award. His new memoir, Unsayable, is forthcoming in the summer of 2026. Jewelle Gomez is an activist and the author of eight books, including the recently published collection of poetry, Still Water, which explores her multiple identities: Black, Native American, Lesbian, and Feminist. Playwright Martin Sherman has been nominated for two Tonys, two BAFTAS and two Oliviers. His memoir, On the Boardwalk, was published in September 2025. Justin Torres is the author of Blackouts, a novel centered around the erasure of queer history, which won the 2023 National Book Award for Fiction. The reading will be hosted by Maureen Corrigan, author and book critic for NPR’s Fresh Air. 
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass.

Admits you to all 4 sessions of the annual Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference. This is the best deal if these are the only events you are attending.

You can also purchase these sessions individually for $10 each.

They are also included in the:

• VIP Pass
• LitPass – full weekend
• LitPass – Friday day pass

Sunday, March 29
2:30 – 3:45 PM—Festival Closing Event
FROM THE PAGE TO THE STAGE: CALL ME IZZY ROUNDTABLE
Cash bar available, so grab a cocktail so we can toast to Tennessee and close out our 40th anniversary!

Go behind the scenes for a glimpse of what it’s like for a playwright to see the words on the page become lines spoken by actors on the stage. Our focus is Call Me Izzy, the Broadway tour de force that brought Jean Smart back to the stage. We begin with music: Adam Lozoya, ragtime virtuoso and composer, will play from the score of Call Me Izzy, composed by Grammy and Oscar-winning musician T-Bone Burnett and David Mansfield, a long-time collaborator of Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash. The show’s playwright, Jamie Wax, and two-time Tony award nominee Johanna Day will present some selections from the poetry and monologues of the play. They will be joined by producer Charles D. Urstadt for a lively conversation hosted by Festival fave and Obie winner, actress Brenda Currin.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, free and open to the public.

Saturday, March 28
4:30 – 6 PM—Cocktail Event & Conversation
HISTORIC HAPPY HOUR
TWFest is celebrating our 40th anniversary this year! How did the Festival get started? Why focus on Tennessee Williams? How has the Festival changed over the decades? We have two board members who have been with us throughout the years and know the answers to those questions and much more. Join Peggy Scott Laborde as she interviews Errol Laborde, who was there when the idea for the Festival was conceived and served as our founding board president. They will chat in the courtyard of the Celestine Hotel among the very spaces where Williams worked on A Streetcar Named Desire. It’s also the spot where Dick Cavett interviewed Williams in 1974. The Celestine’s Tennessee Williams Parlor was once Room 10 of the historic Maison de Ville, Williams’ favorite room when he stayed there. The event is free and you can purchase a cocktail to enjoy during the interview, including a Festival favorite in the early years—the mint julep!
The Celestine Hotel, 727 Toulouse Street, free and open to the public.

(You can select this event to add it to your schedule, but it’s free!)

Sunday, March 29
1 – 2:15 PM—Theatre
STAGED READING OF THE WINNING ONE-ACT PLAY
Join us for a staged reading of Ellipse: A Comet Play by Whitney Rowland, winner of our annual one-act play contest. Under the coordination of Diane Baas, Theatre Department Coordinator, Theatre UNO from the School of the Arts at the University of New Orleans, this reading is directed by Jyna Roots. Following the one-act reading, the winners of our other writing contests will read from their winning pieces: Tena Laing, Fiction; Tianyu Yi, Poetry; and Té V. Smith, Very Short Fiction. Join us in celebrating these contest winners as they share their work with us!
One-Act Contest sponsored by Janet and Stanwood Duval. 
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or LitPass or VIP Pass. 

Saturday, March 28
4 – 5:15 PM—CONVERSATION
CONVERSATION WITH THOMAS MALLON & MARTIN SHERMAN
LED BY MAUREEN CORRIGAN
When fact is stranger than fiction, how do you tell a story that’s compelling, empathetic, and true? NPR’s Maureen Corrigan leads a discussion about interweaving humanity with history. Thomas Mallon is the author of The Very Heart of It, a New Yorker Best Book of the Year that chronicles his journal entries around New York City in the 1980s and 1990s, a gay coming of age story that takes readers through the AIDs crisis and beyond. He is also the author of nonfiction works about diaries, plagiarism, and letters, as well as a substantial body of work in historical fiction, from the Reagan years to Hurricane Katrina. Martin Sherman is the author of On the Boardwalk, a memoir that takes the reader on a darkly humorous journey of the author’s life growing up in a Jewish immigrant family and ending with his success on Broadway as the writer of the play Bent. Sherman is also known for his stage adaptations of Tennessee Williams’ The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone and E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India.
Hotel Monteleone, Queen Anne Ballroom, $10 or Lit Pass or VIP Pass.

Saturday, March 28
8:30 – 9:45 AM—Special Event
BOOKS AND BEIGNETS WITH GARY RICHARDS: THE ROSE TATTOO BY TENNESSEE WILLIAMS
After recently focusing on other writers, our breakfast book group returns to Tennessee Williams himself, exploring his 1951 play The Rose Tattoo to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Consistently hailed as one of Williams’ warmest and most life-affirming plays from his major years, it charts the trauma and slow recovery of Serafina Delle Rose as she copes with her husband’s infidelity and death, her daughter’s burgeoning sexuality, and her own need for love, even if it takes her outside social conventions. Moreover, Williams complicates understandings of the US South, setting the play in a Sicilian-American community along the Gulf Coast and thus paying tribute to his longtime partner Frank Merlo, to whom he dedicates the play. Readers are invited to purchase and/or read the play included in the paperback Three by Tennessee (ISBN 978-0451529084). 
Enjoy your book chat with southern literary scholar Gary Richards, along with pillowy golden beignets, an array of fresh fruit, coffee, and juices, all prepared by Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House!
Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House, 144 Bourbon Street, $40 or VIP Pass. 

Saturday, March 28
4 — 5:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
CHARLES BAXTER: WRITING DURING A TIME OF POLITICAL TURMOIL 
How do we write about social matters when the issues seem toxic and increasingly polarized? What does the writer have to do when every reader knows who the villain is? Using his recent experience as a citizen of Minneapolis, Charles Baxter will lead a discussion about using oblique means and unusual angles to address thorny political questions. Robert Penn Warren’s novel All the King’s Men and Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America” will serve as exemplary texts. 
Hotel Monteleone, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Saturday, March 28
2:30 – 3:45—Writer’s Craft Session
PASSIONATE PLOTTING: CRUCIAL PLOT MOVES THAT KEEP READERS HOOKED—MARGOT DOUAIHY
Presented by the Diana Pinckley Prize for Crime Fiction
What is a plot, really? What’s the difference between a crucial plot point and a placeholder? In this craft session by novelist Margot Douaihy, we’ll sail past simple scaffolds and focus on precision plotting to augment any narrative style and structure. We’ll play with targeted exercises to sharpen your story’s momentum and honor your unique goals. We’ll examine exemplary plot strategies and put theory into action as we write 2-Minute Mysteries. This craft session is for any writer in any genre who wants to level up plot skills and become a passionate plotter!
Hotel Monteleone, Riverview Room, $25 or VIP Pass

Friday, March 27
2:30 – 3:45 PM–Writer’s Craft Session 
CHRISTINE MA-KELLAMS—GREAT BEGINNINGS
How does a story start? How well you answer this question dictates whether the reader turns the page and finds out what happens next. Novelist, psychologist, and culture/lifestyle writer Christine Ma-Kellams discusses the secret(s) to get a total stranger to stay a little while longer in the world you’ve introduced them to for no other reason than an irresistible urge to find out what happens next. This writing workshop will examine classic and recent opening lines—from the loaded observations in Virginia Woolf and Deesha Philyaw to the real life music video that inspired the first lines of Ma-Kellams’ The Band—and how they set up the narrative arc for the remainder of the story. We will discuss how to apply them across narrative formats, from novels to short stories and everything in between. We’ll spend the second half of the session workshopping your own opening lines, which will include writing exercises, sharing, and feedback.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27
1 – 2:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
LAURA VENITA GREEN—DEVILS, DOPPELGÄNGERS, GHOSTS, AND CREEPY DOLLS: INCORPORATING ENTITY INTO YOUR FICTION TO TELL VERY HUMAN STORIES
Serious literature doesn’t necessarily mean realist literature. Often, adding speculative elements into our fiction can help us reach a deeper level of truth and meaning, amplifying any subject we’re attempting to tackle, such as family, relationships, mental health, motherhood, growing up, and belonging. Introducing devils, demons, dogs, doppelgängers, or any number of non-human or superhuman entities is a great technique for underpinning characters’ psychological states, flaws, and behaviors. It’s also a strategy that can be used to reach toward the inarticulable messiness of the human condition. Each of us contains entire worlds—how do we contend with a truth that large? Through group discussion, targeted writing prompts, and examining contemporary genre-bending writers like Samanta Schweblin, ‘Pemi Aguda, Helen Phillips, and Ananda Lima, this craft session with novelist and translator Laura Venita Green will leave you with concrete ideas on how to incorporate some sort of entity or presence into your fiction to tell very human stories.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27
11:30 – 12:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
CHRISTOPHER CASTELLANI—THE ART OF PERSPECTIVE
The success of any work of fiction or narrative nonfiction depends almost entirely on its narrative strategy: not only which character(s) tell(s) the story, from what vantage point, in the past or present, but why those choices are optimal and how they contribute to the overall effect. In this session, we will begin by defining narrative strategy, then discuss its relationship to an author’s choice of perspective and his/her manipulation of narrative distance. Participants should expect to discuss a few short examples from literature, do a writing exercise or two, and brainstorm solutions for their own projects.  
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Friday, March 27

10 – 11:15 AM—Writer’s Craft Session

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM—WRITING A MEMOIR: TELLING THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE

Join Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Cunningham for an audience-involved workshop on telling the story of your life through memoir writing. Telling your version of your own life may seem easy, but a memoir is more than straight narrative. Good memoirs compel readers to keep reading. There’s a thread or a theme that resonates with readers. What makes you want to share your life’s story? Is there something universal about it or relevant to a particular audience? Is there a thread or theme running through your life’s key moments? For this session, Cunningham will discuss his own work in this genre, his memoir coming out in July from Random House, Unsayable, and will lead the group in some writing of their own.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Thursday, March 26

6:30 – 9 PM—Special Event

TRIBUTE READING: FUGITIVE BEAUTY, TENDER FEELINGS, & SPARTAN ENDURANCE—THE WOMEN OF TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

Over the last 80 years actresses around the world have regularly expressed how deeply they relate to and appreciate the female characters created by Tennessee Williams, and at this year’s Tribute Reading you will hear their voices. While there are a few “Southern Belles” (who bear no resemblance to stereotypes of what a Southern woman might once have been), Williams created dozens of glorious female characters, some who you know well such as Blanche, Stella, Amanda, Alma, and Maggie. As well as many whose names may not be as familiar such as Leona, Bodey, Myrtle, Carol, Flora, Zelda, Clare, and Jessie. Yet in one way or another all of them are powerful, intuitive, witty, loving, ferocious survivors. This years’ readers include Festival authors Jewelle Gomez, Robert Olen Butler, and Skye Jackson; playwrights Martin Sherman and Jamie Wax; Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s  Fresh Air Book Reviewer; and actors Gideon Glick and CCH Pounder. The evening is curated by Festival Director Paul J. Willis and Williams editor Thomas Keith, and hosted by Keith.

The annual Tribute Reading is presented by a grant from the New Orleans Theatre Association (NOTA).

Hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar at 6:30 PM; performance at 7:30 PM.

New Orleans Jazz Museum, 400 Esplanade Avenue, $45 or VIP Pass.

Thursday, March 26
2:30 – 3:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
WRITING LITERARY FICTION WITH ROBERT OLEN BUTLER 
In the first half of his workshop, Robert Olen Butler will speak on the fundamentals of the creative process for fiction writers who aspire to create enduring literature.  He will address such issues as what is art; what is distinctive about the way the artist addresses the world, the inner self, and the objects to be created; and what are the essential characteristics of fiction as an art form. In the second half he will begin administering an in-class coached writing exercise. The exercise is in multiple parts and you will make an intensive line-to-line beginning in class under his prompting and will be given the remaining exercise increments to carry home to finish at your leisure. It is quite possible for a complete, fully-formed literary short story to eventually emerge. Needless to say, you must bring with you your primary mode of writing a story, be that anything from a drafting pencil and legal pad to a laptop computer.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Thursday, March 26
1 – 2:15 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
SKYE JACKSON—WHAT A LOVELY WAY TO BURN: NEGOTIATING DISTANCE & DESIRE IN POETRY
How close is too close? When we write poetry about desire, we must begin with a deep understanding of ourselves but also of the power of restraint—the way in which we use desire as a tool or as conduit for connection. What should be revealed? And what should stay hidden, and then, suddenly be deliciously discovered? We will probe these questions and more in our examination of desire in poetry—how we write into it and how we live it out as well. In this craft talk and workshop, we’ll read work by poets who unveil the underpinnings of desire and then attempt, in earnest, to write into that space as well. There will be time towards the end of the session to share your poems and receive feedback from the craft session leader and the rest of the group.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Thursday, March 26
11:30 AM – 12:45 PM—Writer’s Craft Session
MARGUERITE SHEFFER—WRITING HOPES AND FEARS INTO SPECULATIVE FICTION
What will the future bring? What can our dreams and wildest imaginations teach us about the worlds we want to build–or avoid? Speculative Fiction (science fiction, fantasy, horror, slipstream, etc.) is a rich playground for imagining our world otherwise. Speculative fiction authors bend reality to interrogate our morals and explore alternatives. In this session, we will learn from classic speculative short stories, and practice generative exercises to turn our hopes and fears about the future (and present) into engaging speculative fiction. We’ll also go over practices for revising, polishing, and publishing short speculative fiction.
Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Thursday, March 26

10 – 11:15 AM—Writer’s Craft Session

MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN—STARTING AND FINISHING STORIES AND NOVELS

Starting a story is often the hardest part. In this generative workshop, we’ll explore tried and true techniques that will help you find a good place to begin. We’ll also discuss how beginnings are related to endings. In combination, these are valuable techniques to overcome writer’s block and complete your work. In addition, Ruffin will focus on the elements of craft to give you a rock-solid understanding of how stories are constructed, whether novels or short stories. We’ll discuss examples of craft from the writings of legendary authors, and we’ll make use of music, film clips, poetry, and philosophy to learn about storytelling.

Hotel Monteleone, Lobby Level, Royal Salon, $25 or VIP Pass.

Sunday, March 29
7 – 9 PM—Culinary
BIBI’S KITCHEN: A ROMANI CULINARY RITUAL
​​Join your slutty, stoner Aunties Bimbo Yaga and Moonbear as they lovingly share their kitchen witchery with you. This four-course family style meal will feature inspired dishes of Eastern European and Balkan Romani family food traditions with slight variations to accommodate gluten-free and vegetarian guests. Following dinner, your favorite aunties will guide you through a brief tea-leaf reading session. With live music and storytelling, this ritual of food is curated to nourish your spirits and fill your hearts with comfort. Our menu for this event is subject to change. 1st Course: Gluten-free kimmel soup with rye toast and horseradish cream cheese. 2nd Course: Delicious beef and veal or vegetarian buckwheat sarmas with cucumber and labneh salad. 3rd Course: A choice of vegetarian goulash with roasted eggplant and chickpeas or braised lamb goulash, served over baked herbed rice, garnished with whipped feta and lemon crème. 4th Course: Homemade rose and cardamom ice cream over a gluten free apple and oat crumble served with tea. Beverages: Iced Herbal Tea, Herb Infused Rose. When purchasing your ticket, please indicate vegetarian or meat. Note: dishes prepared with butter, onions, garlic, tomatoes, peppers. Because this is a family style dinner, we are not able to accommodate serious food allergies or make substitutions for dietary sensitivities.
Mister Gregory’s Shrimp Boil Cabaret, 830 North Rampart Street, $100. Not available with VIP pass.

Want to see the whole Festival? The VIP Pass is the way to go!

Includes these events March 25 – 29, 2026:

• Opening Night
• Writer’s Craft sessions Thursday and Friday
• All literary discussions Friday-Sunday
• Scholars Conference on Friday
• Conversation Series
• Drummer and Smoke music events
• Walking Tours (one of each)
• Tennessee Williams Tribute Reading
• Books and Beignets
• Last Bohemia Events
• Partner theatre events
• Invitation to Donor Party at The Historic New Orleans Collection Friday night

Does not include Festival fundraisers.

VIP Pass holders must reserve their spots ahead of time to guarantee a seat. A staff member will contact VIP Pass holders via email prior to the Festival with instructions for creating your Festival Schedule.

SASFest Membership $25 level.