Literary Discussion

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.

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.