STAKING A CLAIM: DEBUT NOVELISTS

SUNDAY, MARCH 27 1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion  How do you create a sense of belonging in a strange place, a new home, a changed earth? In four thrilling new novels, characters combat climate change, racism, displacement, and supernatural forces to make space for themselves and their families. Join debut novelists Olivia Clare Friedman, author…

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OH, THE PLACES YOU’LL GO: CONNECTING CHARACTER AND SETTING

Sunday, March 27, 11:30 AM—12:45 PM—Literary Discussion Placing a character in a particular setting opens up so many narrative choices—how the characters engage with that landscape, how to authentically create life in a specific place. Sometimes the setting itself becomes a character. These writers have set their work in places as diverse as Florida and…

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GO TO JAIL: YOUTH WRITING ABOUT THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

Saturday, March 26, 2:30 – 3:30 PM—Literary Discussion    GO TO JAIL: YOUTH WRITING ABOUT THE PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX Last year, the ground-breaking New Orleans youth writing program Students at the Center (SAC) published Go To Jail, a collection of writings about life inside the prison industrial complex in Louisiana. Join Jerome Morgan of Free-Dem…

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WHO GETS TO TELL THE STORY?

Sunday, March 27, 1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion How do you liberate your imagination and creative voice to tell stories that may exist outside of your personal experience? Can you speak for others without silencing or appropriating their voices or truths? As LGBTQ and BIPOC writers gain greater visibility and access to the publishing world,…

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TRYING TO WASH US AWAY: COASTAL EROSION AND CLIMATE CHANGE

Saturday, March 26, 10 – 11:30 AM—Literary Discussion Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of How Strange a Season, Craig Colten, author of State of Disaster: A Historical Geography of Louisiana’s Land Loss Crisis; Olivia Clare Friedman, author of Here Lies; and Nathaniel Rich, author of Losing Earth and Second Nature, discuss writing about the urgent issues of…

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SUCH A WICKED CITY: NEW ORLEANS AND THE IDEA OF DECADENCE

Saturday, March 26, 1 – 2:15 PM—Literary Discussion Brian Altobello, author of Whiskey, Women, and War: How the Great War Shaped Jim Crow New Orleans; Robert Azzarello, author of Three Hundred Years of Decadence: New Orleans Literature and the Transatlantic World; Alecia P. Long, “Cruising for Conspirators: How a New Orleans DA Prosecuted the Kennedy…

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STRONG LIKE BAMBOO: A LOOK AT NEW ORLEANS’ RESILIENT VIETNAMESE COMMUNITY

Saturday, March 26, 1 – 2 PM—Literary Discussion New Orleans is a city with numerous distinctly rich cultures. The Vietnamese community in New Orleans is the focus of Eric Nguyen‘s revealing debut novel about an immigrant family, Things We Lost in the Water (2022) and a new documentary film by Glen Pitre that focuses on…

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MARY QUEEN OF VIETNAM

Saturday, March 26, 2:15 – 3:30  PM—Film Glen Pitre introduces Mary Queen of Vietnam, an hour-long television documentary, offering a lively look at one of Louisiana’s and America’s most fascinating but least understood ethnic cultures. He takes us inside the community surrounding Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church in eastern New Orleans as it prepares…

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EXILE AND THE ARTIST’S RESPONSIBILITY

Saturday, March 26, 4 – 5:15 PM—Literary Discussion The choice to become an exile is often a difficult one. What about the choice to write about exile and the life that was left behind? In The Fortunes, Peter Ho Davies retells American history through the eyes of Chinese-Americans. In The Apartment on Calle Uruguay, Zachary Lazar creates…

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MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THIS

Sunday, March 27, 10 – 11:15 AM—Literary Discussion Four accomplished memoirists discuss their craft in revealing new books. Jami Attenberg gives us an unvarnished account of a writer’s life in I Came All This Way to Meet You, her debut memoir; Mary Gauthier shares both her craft and her personal story in Saved By a…

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