History
The Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival is a French Quarter celebration of literature, theatre, cuisine, and music.
We'll celebrate our 40th anniversary in 2026, and over the past four decades, we have hosted thousands of events featuring thousands of literary luminaries and stars of the stage and screen.
Book and theatre lovers come to New Orleans from all over the country and abroad for our writer's craft sessions, literary panels, theatre events, literary walking tours, culinary events, author interviews, and music events. And don’t forget our Stella Shouting Contest!
We are also the hosts of the annual Tennessee Williams Scholars Conference, the Saints & Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival, and The Last Bohemia cultural event series, all held the same weekend as TWFest. We partner with Baldwin & Co. Coffee and Bookshop for a free writing workshop series, Coffee & Craft, and we are committed to promoting New Orleans writers through partnerships with organizations like LMNL Lit and Third Lantern Lit.
Read our full history with highlights from every Festival HERE.
Mission
The Festival’s mission is threefold: to serve the community through educational, theatrical, literary, and musical programs; to nurture, support, and showcase regional, national and international writers, actors, musicians, and other artists; to honor the creative genius of Tennessee Williams, who considered this city his spiritual home.
Commitment to our Community
TWFest believes a diverse representation of voices, equitable access, and inclusive practices are all vital to sustaining a vibrant arts and culture community. Our staff and board of directors are committed to promoting, supporting, and celebrating the culturally diverse voices that make up the New Orleans literary landscape.
Awards and Accolades
- Received the prestigious Louisiana Governor's Art Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Arts Organization in 2008.
- Earned the James Patterson Page-turner Award for excellence in finding innovative and effective ways to spread the joy of reading to the public in 2006.
- Named one of the top ten literary festivals in the nation by USA Today.
- Named one of the "Six Literary Festivals Around the World You Can't Miss" by Afar Magazine.
- Named one of the Best Writing Conferences in America by The Writer magazine.
- Executive Director Paul J. Willis awarded the Triangle Publishing Leadership Award, 2019.
- Managing Director Tracy Cunningham awarded the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities "Light Up for Literacy" Award, 2022.
Board of Directors
Executive Board
PRESIDENT - Gregory Gajus
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT - Lawrence Henry Gobble
VICE PRESIDENT - Sara W. Woodard
SECRETARY - Michelle Nelson
TREASURER - Terry Verigan
MEMBER AT LARGE - Amelia W. Koch
MEMBER AT LARGE - Peggy Scott Laborde
MEMBER AT LARGE - C. Morgan Babst
Board Members
Sara Barnard
Beau Bratcher
David Hoover
David Johnson
D. J. Johnson
Errol Laborde, Ph.D.
Margit Longbrake
Mary Niall Mitchell, Ph.D.
Angel Adams Parham, Ph.D.
Edward Spots
Ariel Wilson-Harris
Writers' Circle Advisory Board Members
Addie Citchens
Anne Gisleson
Skye Jackson
Alex Jennings
Adam Karlin
Annell López
E.M. Tran
Nikki Ummel
Adrian Van Young
Staff
Paul J. Willis, Executive Director, has over 27 years of experience in nonprofit management. He earned a B.S. degree in Psychology and a M.S. degree in Communication. He started his administrative work in 1992 as the co-director of the Holos Foundation in Minneapolis, an alternative high school program for at-risk youth. Willis has been the executive director of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival since 2004. He is the founder of the Saints & Sinners LGBTA+ Literary Festival (established in 2003), and has edited various anthologies including the annual Saints and Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival and the award-winning Love, Bourbon Street with his partner Greg Herren. He was the 2019 recipient of the Triangle Publishing Leadership Award, which recognizes contributions to LGBTQ literature by those who are not primarily writers, for his work with SASFest. Photo by Ride Hamilton.
Tracy Cunningham, Managing Director, has a long history in secondary education, event planning, and organizational management. She holds master’s degrees in both English and in Educational Leadership and has been a national speaker and teacher-consultant with the National Writing Project. She taught high school English, creative writing, and journalism, as well as composition at the university level. Tracy writes fiction and nonfiction and is Co-Director of the New Orleans Writing Marathon, a writing experience for teachers and writers of all levels. She co-edited the annual Saints and Sinners: New Fiction from the Festival in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. She won the Light Up for Literacy Award from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities in 2022.
Reine Dugas, Ph.D, Festival Publicist, a native New Orleanian, is a writer and an English professor at Southeastern Louisiana University. She’s also editor of Louisiana Life and Acadiana Profile magazines. On the weekends, she interviews authors for a boozy literary podcast called Booktails. Her short stories have appeared in publications including South 85 Journal, Deep South Magazine, The Arkansas Review, and Acentos Review, among others. Of those, “Ellie, an Epilogue,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. She’s edited two anthologies—an academic collection focusing on Eudora Welty’s Delta Wedding and a creative collection of feminist writing called Audacious Women.
Susan Larson, Literary Programming Consultant, is the host of The Reading Life on WWNO, New Orleans’ NPR affiliate, and the author of The Booklover’s Guide to New Orleans, recently published in a second edition. She is the past president of the Women’s National Book Association of New Orleans, which presents the Pinckley Prizes for Crime Fiction, and she is a former member of the boards of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival and The New Orleans Public Library. Susan was the book editor for The New Orleans Times-Picayune from 1988-2009. In 2007, she received the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities lifetime achievement award for her contributions to the literary community.
