A couple of years before Katrina, Louisiana started their Book Festival, held over two days in and around the lovely old state capitol building in Baton Rouge. Now, Louisiana may be backward and crooked and just plain crazy, but this is something they do right. It’s educational and entertaining, with great food and music as well as great speakers, and most of it’s free! (The food’s not free, but it’s reasonable, and the music and the Saturday speakers are free.)
The 2005 Book Festival had to be canceled because of Katrina, but they managed to pull off the 2006 Festival, and this year’s event should be better than ever. I’ll be doing another panel with Laura Joh Rolland on Saturday, 3 November. I’ll also be teaching a six-hour “Wordshop” on Friday, 2 November, on Writing Genre Fiction. (Like the food, the Friday Wordshops are not free, but they’re not expensive.) I’m excited to be able to do it, and it should be great fun.
So if you have the time, come on down to Baton Rouge the first weekend in November, eat some gumbo, sip some wine, listen to some blues and jazz, and mingle with thousands of book-loving people. Who could resist?
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4 comments:
Cool. Sounds fun!
One thing that always struck me about Louisiana: On the one hand, great bookstores, dedicated booklovers and a long tradition of turning out great writers.
On the other, there was nothing unusual about the time two late-teens/early-twenties young women in line ahead of me in the supermarket were deperately trying to sound out the words on a magazine cover. They wanted to know what it said about the musician in the photo...
here in Christchurch, the Council pulled our funding for this year's book festival...
I've only gone one year, which is ridiculous since I had a great time. I'll definetely try to make it this year.
Steve, try teaching in this atmosphere. The weaknesses in common reading skills is appalling and can really make the teacher's job difficult.
I hope to be able to attend the Book Festival this year. You're right, it's a great event for both writers and readers.
By the way, I'm tagging you to take part in a "meme." If you'd like to participate, go to my blog entry for June 19 to learn more. It was fun.
Wiil be just what I'll need after the move......is there a website? Thanks :-)
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