Odd Bits of Life in New Orleans

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans May 23, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& Monday at 6 pm Garden District Book Shop (2727 Prytania) will host Michael Murphy in conversation with Stanton Moore, Meschiya Lake, and Jan Ramsey. Michael will then sign his book, Hear Dat New Orleans: A Guide to the Rich Musical Heritage & Lively Current Scene.

& on Tuesday at 4pm, at Rosa F. Keller Library & Community Center (4300 S. Broad) The New Orleans Youth Open Mic (NOYOM) hosts its monthly writing workshops. Facilitated by Team Slam New Orleans (SNO) founding member and #NOYOM committee member Akeem Martin, the workshops will help youth learn new writing skills and improve upon the ones they already have in a fun, structured space. Attendees will have the chance to submit work to be published in the NOYOM Youth Anthology. Open to all 7th – 12th graders.

& At 6pm, Garden District Book Shop Pres Kabacoff in conversation with James Farwell, discusses and signs his book, Revitalizing Cities: The HRI Vision. Revitalizing Cities: The HRI Vision tells the story of America’s most innovative real estate companies. Emerging in New Orleans during the 1980s, HRI Properties’ early work in neighborhoods and communities in that city forged it’s mission, and it is now a leader in revitalizing historic neighborhoods that have been abandoned and left vacant. This book is availble in hardcover ($44.95).

& Wednesday at 7 pm Esoterotica: Original Erotic Readings by Local Writers Esoterotica continute its bi-weekly performance series at The AllWays Lounge (The AllWays Lounge 2240 St. Claude) with its 4th Annual Debaucherous Duets reading night, an evening showcasing all collaborative and group erotica. Slated performances by Shadow Angelina with Aime’ SansSavant, Mike Marina with Roux B Shears, Zach Bartlett with Deb Jannerson, Deb Jannerson with Davida Sharp, Fischer Pete with Megan Doe, and Many More. Doors at 7pm, Show at 8pm. No Cover.

& At 8 pm Wednesday the Blood Jet Poetry Series back in the Poetry Living Room at BJs through mid-June every Wednesday night at 8PM. Welcome us back with this week’s readers: Rodrigo Toscano and Carolyn Hembree. Rodrigo Toscano’s newest book of poetry is Explosion Rocks Springfield Fence Books, 2016) His previous books include, Deck of Deeds, Collapsible Poetics Theater (a National Poetry Series selection), To Leveling Swerve, Platform, Partisans, and The Disparities. His poetry has appeared in the anthologies Voices Without Borders, Diasporic Avant Gardes, Imagined Theatres, In the Criminal’s Cabinet, Earth Bound, and Best American Poetry. Toscano has received a New York State Fellowship in Poetry. His poetics plays have been performed at the Disney Redcat Theater and Ontological-Hysteric Poet’s Theater Festival. His radio pieces have aired on WPIX FM, KAOS Public Radio, WNYU, and PS.1 Radio. His poetry has been translated into French, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese, Norwegian and Catalan. He works for the Labor Institute in conjunction with the United Steelworkers, the National Institute for Environmental Health Science, Communication Workers of America, and National Day Laborers Organizing Network. Originally, from San Diego, and after 16 years, in Brooklyn, NY, Toscano now lives in New Orleans. Carolyn Hembree was born in Bristol, Tennessee. Her debut poetry collection, Skinny, came out from Kore Press in 2012. In 2016, Trio House Books published her second collection, Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague, winner of the 2015 Trio Award and the 2015 Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award. Her work has appeared in Colorado Review, Drunken Boat, The Journal, Poetry Daily, and other publications. She has received grants and fellowships from PEN, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the Southern Arts Federation. An assistant professor at the University of New Orleans, Carolyn teaches writing and serves as poetry editor of Bayou Magazine.

& Thursday at 6:30 A Scribe Called Quess?, instructional coach at Martin Behrman Charter Academy of Creative Arts, joins forces with fellow staff Omotinubuwa Fayemi and her troupe of Mardi Gras Indians, Honey Sanaa, Erika “PoeticOne” Murray, Brittany Travesté Epps, and the legendary Chuck Perkins and Voices of the Big Easy for an evening of poetry and culture to close out your school year. Live music, food and more will be involved. ALL are welcome and invited.

& at 6:30 Banks Street Bar & Grill (4401 Banks) will launch its inaugural Banks Street Open Mic with guest host Geoff Munsterman. Poets are encouraged to sign up & read. Geoff Munsterman is the author of Because the Stars Shine Through It (Lavender Ink, 2013) and has has his work published in Poets for Living Waters, The Southern Poetry Anthology, YAWP, story|south, The Double Dealer, The New Laurel Review, and Margie to name a few and received the John Crowe Ransom Prize for Poetry in 2006. He is founder & editor at Next Left Press, which specializes is handmade poetry chapbooks.

& at 8pm Bar Redux (801 Poland) Presents Phlaurel Pollinator. Phlaurel Pollinator is a poet and singer, who spreads her positive and radiant energy with the crowd. She gets the audience in on the moment by having them join in with spoons, washboards, and anything they can. She is a unique spirit who will pull you into her orbit. Guests are invited to join her for an intimate laid back evening on the patio.

& Friday 7pm, Renaissance New Orleans Arts Hotel (700 Tchoup) will have Cocktails and Spoken Word. Audience members wil receive 1 complimentary cocktail and “a night of poetry dopeness” from host John Lacarbiere III.

& Saturday at 10:30 AM Nix Library (1401 S. Carrollton) will hold a creative writing workshop led my Trisha Rezende. Rezende leads a dynamic writing workshop where students will produce, share, and critique texts while learning how to develop character, voice, and style.

& Sunday at 1 pm Robert Menuet will continue to faciliate the Neutral Ground poetry forum at Neutral Ground Coffee House (5110 Danneel). Robert Menuet has been published by Loyola’s New Orleans Review, Desire Street, The Texas Review Press, and in the Southern Poetry Anthology. He is trained in performance. By day, he is a marriage counselor, psychotherapist, and clinical supervisor. The poetry forum follows strict protocols, so be advised to contact the forum before arriving.

& Sunday at 3 pm the Maple Leaf Reading Series will hold its Memorial Day open mic. This is the oldest continuous reading series in the south, curated by Nancy Harris

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans May 2, 2016

& On Saturday, May 7 New Orleans indie book shops host their celebration of Independent Bookstore Day, just a little behind the rest of the country due to Jazz Fest. To celebrate Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, May 7, four local shops including Garden District Book Shop, Octavia Books, Maple Street Book Shop, and Tubby and Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop have partnered with Yelp to bring you a fun scavenger hunt! The idea is to get you to visit all three book shops on May 7 looking for clues to put together a secret phrase. Figure out the phrase and say it, and you’ll be entered to win $100 in gift certificates from all three book shops.There will be special events at each of the locals all across town, including:

• At Octavia Books: 9:00–We open early today! Young people ages 8-12 can begin a special, fun-task-infused scanvenger hunt with Blue Frog Chocolates, Magic Box Toys, and Octavia; 9:15–Curious George: Come in your favorite animal costume to meet Curious George, listen to one of his stories, make animal noises, play around with the alphabet, and enter a bookmark coloring contest; 10:15–Jane Jacob’s Walk — Join up at the bookstore for the final stop or start at the beginning at 9:00 at Cafe Luna; and learn first hand about “What Makes a Successful Commercial Corridor?”;11:00–Adult Coloring Contest: Win a copy of GIRL WITH A GUN by Amy Stewart; 12:00–Armand St. Martin: Hear some tunes from this piano man; 1:00–Michael Tisserand: Challenge the author to a blitz game of chess. Win a prize if you beat him; 4:00–Book Swap: Bring (or buy) a book you have loved and want to share. Swap with another customer or a bookseller at the store; and, 5:00–Booklovers’ Cocktail Hour Starring the Bourbon Street Sour with authors Andrew Shaffer, Tiffany Reisz and Jenn LeBlanc. If you purchase one of Andrew or Jenn’s books, you will receive an advance copy of Tiffany’s latest.
• Maple Street Book Shop will be serving snowballs from Plum Street Snoballs and having readings from local authors. In addition, for one day only, the will be having a sale: all used books will be 50% off! (no other discounts apply). For one day, and one day only, a number of very limited, unique, word-based items and books will be available in more than 400 independent stores across the country. These aren’t your run-of-the-mill signed first editions-these are literature-based art projects, unique books, and collector’s items created for this event only. You can’t get them before.You can’t get them after. And you can’t get them online. The shop will have limited-edition, exclusive books and literary art pieces from Neil Gaiman, Ann Patchett, Tad Hills, Curious George, Anthony Bourdain, and many more. Only at indie bookstores. Only on May 7.
• At Garden district Book Shop: Free Letterpress New Orleans Journal if you spend $25 or purchase an IBD themed item; You’ll receive a random tote bag if you spend $50 or more (while supplies last); Make sure you take photos and tag us on social media, when you show us you shared info about Independent Bookstore Day on social media for 15% off your purchase that day; Advance Reading Copies (ARCs) to anyone making a purchase of $15 or more.
• Tubby & Coo’s will offer exclusive day-of merchandise created especially for Independent Bookstore Day by major publishers and authors, including a Neil Gaiman coloring book, a Brandon Sanderson pocket guide to THE STORMLIGHT ARCHIVES, and more! Since its inception in 2014, more than 120 authors have demonstrated their support for independent bookstores by donating work for Bookstore Day. At Tubby & Coo’s, we will also have giveaways and fun activities going on all day.

& The Loyola Writing Institute at the Walker Percy Center for Writing + Publishing announces their upcoming schedule of summer workshops. For more details, visit their webpage at http://www.loyno.edu/wpc/loyola-writing-institute.

& Monday at 5 pm at the East New Orleans Regional Library New Orleans Spoken Word Artists will present their monthly workshop that include poetry writing and performance, with the goal of building community through writing and strengthening students’ written and verbal communication skills.

& At 6:30 pm Monday at the East Jefferson Regional Library the East Jefferson Writer’s Group meets. This is a critique group for serious fiction writers of all levels who want to improve their story development skills. This group focuses on discussing story development and writing elements and applying critiquing skills in romance, adventure, mystery, literature (but not genres of SciFi, Fantasy, Horror of the Thursday Sci-FI Writers). Short stories, novels, screenplays, plays, comics are accepted; however, non-fiction, such as poetry, biography, autobiography, essays, or magazine articles is not. Free and open to the public. No registration.

& Meet William Geroux when he presents and signs THE MATHEWS MEN: Seven Brothers and the War Against Hitler’s U-Boats Monday at 6 pm at Octavia Books. Mathews County, Virginia, is a remote outpost on the Chesapeake Bay with little to offer except unspoiled scenery, but it sent an unusually large concentration of sea captains to fight in World War II. The Mathews Men tells that heroic story through the experiences of one extraordinary family whose seven sons (and their neighbors), U.S. merchant mariners all, suddenly found themselves squarely in the cross-hairs of the U-boats bearing down on the coastal United States in 1942. THE MATHEWS MEN shows us the war far beyond traditional battlefields often the U.S. merchant mariners life-and-death struggles took place just off the U.S. coast but also takes us to the landing beaches at D-Day and to the Pacific. When final victory is ours, General Dwight D. Eisenhower had predicted, there is no organization that will share its credit more deservedly than the Merchant Marine. Here, finally, is the heroic story of those merchant seamen, recast as the human story of the men from Mathews.

& Opening on Tuesday is an exhibitiion “Merry as the Day Is Long”: Shakespeare’s Hand in New Orleans on view May 3–June 4 in the Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street, Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30–4:30 p.m. Admission to the exhibition is free. Sponsored by the Tulane University English Department as well as The Historic New Orleans Collection.

& On Tuesday at 7 pm The 1718 Society will be hosting Carolyn Hembree, author of the new book Rigging A Chevy Into A Time Machine And Other Ways To Escape A Plague. The event will take place at the Columns Hotel and is free and open to the public. Maple Street will be on hand to sell copies of the book. Carolyn’s first poetry collection, Skinny was published by Kore Press in 2012 and her chapbook by Nous-zot Press in 2015. Her newest book, Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague, won the 2015 Trio Award, selected by Neil Shepard, and the 2015 Marsh Hawk Press Rochelle Ratner Memorial Awar, selected by Stephanie Strickland.

& Also at 7 pm Tuesday at the Old Metairie Library the Great Books Discussion Group meets to discuss “Prometheus Bound” by Aeschylus.

& At 6 pm Tuesday Garden District Book Shop will present Julia Reed’s South: Spirited Entertaining and High-Style Fun All Year Long. No one embodies the rollicking spirit of great Southern party giving more than Julia Reed, the consummate hostess and go-to food and lifestyle expert. Thrown everywhere from lush gardens and gracious interior spaces to a Mississippi River sandbar, Julia Reed s parties capture the celebratory nature of entertaining in her native South. Here, her informative and down-to-earth guide to throwing an unforgettable party includes secrets she has collected over a lifetime of entertaining. For this book, she offers up a feast of options for holiday cocktails, spring lunches, formal dinners, and even a hunt breakfast. Eleven seasonal events feature delicious, easy-to-prepare recipes, ranging from fried chicken to Charlotte Russe and signature cocktails or wine-pairings she introduces her talented friends (rum makers, potters, fabric designers, bakers) along the way. Each occasion includes gorgeous photographs showing her original approach to everything from invitations and setting a table to arranging flowers and creating the mood. Reed also provides practical considerations and sources. This irresistible book is the ultimate primer for every party-giver.

& Local, prolific author Claudia Gray is back with a new Star Wars book, BLOODLINE. Geek out at Octavia Books Tuesday at 6 pm and celebrate the launch with a presentation and booksigning. From the New York Times bestselling author of STAR WARS: Lost Stars comes a thrilling novel set in the years before STAR WARS: The Force Awakens. Witness the birth of the Resistance.

& At 8 pm Tuesday Grab your sazeracs and head on down to the Mudlark Public Theater for a fine festive showing in the creative pursuits of young poets based near and far. Ma Ja Ka will be rolling through all the way down from the city of Brotherly Entanglement to bless ya with his new work called Travel By Haiku. A fine night of word magic and humble transformations awaits you. Don’t miss it. Performers include: KNIGHTS OF PIRAEUS, LAURA FISHER & MOSES EDER, MARSHALL JAMES KAVANAUGH, UTAHNA FAITH, KAREN LEBLANC, and JUSTIN NOBEL. Doors at 8pm. Suggested $5 donation for the traveling poet

& Katarina Bivald, author of the bestseller THE READERS OF BROKEN WHEEL RECOMMEND, will be at Octavia Books Wednesday at 6 pm to sign and discuss her book! Plus,there will be a raffle of a special gift basket from Katarina’s publisher. Once you let a book into your life, the most unexpected things can happen. Broken Wheel, Iowa, has never seen anyone like Sara, who traveled all the way from Sweden just to meet her book-loving pen pal, Amy. When she arrives, however, she finds Amy’s funeral guests just leaving. The residents of Broken Wheel are happy to look after their bewildered visitor there’s not much else to do in a dying small town that’s almost beyond repair. You certainly wouldn’t open a bookstore. And definitely not with the tourist in charge. You’d need a vacant storefront (Main Street is full of them), books (Amy’s house is full of them), and…customers. The bookstore might be a little quirky. Then again, so is Sara. But Broken Wheel’s own story might be more eccentric and surprising than she thought. A heartwarming reminder of why we are booklovers, this is a sweet, smart story about how books find us, change us, and connect us.

& Reading Between the Wines is a laid back, salon-type environment where we drink wine, eat cheese, and talk to local authors about their books. The event takes place on the first Wednesday evening of every month at Pearl Wine Co. inside of the American Can Company from 7:00-8:00 PM. This Wednesday the theme will be writing about New Orleans/using New Orleans as a setting. Joining us will be:

• Andy Reynolds lives and writes in New Orleans. His first novel is SPECTACLE OF THE EXTENSION, and his second is THE AXEBOY’S BLUES. He has written an online novella, entitled THE EPISODES, which takes place in New Orleans and is the catalyst for the novel series he is working on. Andy also performs spoken word around the city, most notably with Esoterotica, a biweekly reading of erotic and semi-erotic stories and poetry. Some of these pieces are published in Esoterotica’s anthologies, as well as their audio CDs.
• Reynolds’s book, THE AXEBOY’S BLUES, features a NOLA where creatures and spirits of every ilk saunter down the jazz-filled streets day and night, struggling to find purpose. The book follows a centuries-old agency tasked with protecting NOLA from forces that would see her destroyed. Unfortunately, the agency was nearly wiped out and is virtually nonexistent. In a city where mosquitoes wear spectacles and vests, where the Mississippi is teeming with monstrous beasts, and where Wonder sprouts from people’s heads like plants, can this agency fill its ranks once more to take on an adversary from the past – that has jumped through time?
• Craig Bennett Hallenstein is a psychologist, author, and father of five whose blog, Let’s Talk Sex, is a guide to conscious living and sustainable relationships. He studied psychology at Beloit College and California School of Professional Psychology, and writing at the University of Iowa. His piece in People Finders Magazine was optioned for a made-for-TV movie. An earlier blog, Sex-Positive Parenting, provided guidelines and tips for fostering sexual health in children.
• Hallenstein’s book, THE DOLPHIN, is about an aspiring psychologist named Sean Jordan who moves to NOLA to put the past behind him…until a conservative radio station outs him as a sex offender. When the thirteen-year-old daughter of the station’s nationally celebrated talk show host disappears, police scramble to take down Jordan, unaware that he too is a victim of the kidnapper, terrorizing the city on the eve of Mardi Gras. Jordan has a chance to save the girl but only if he meets the kidnapper’s demands. Refusing could cost him his life. Agreeing could cost him his soul.

& At 8 pm Wednesday the Blood Jet Poetry Series back in the Poetry Living Room at BJs through mid-June every Wednesday night at 8PM. Welcome us back with this week’s readers: Poet Sue Landers will be coming to town to join us in the Living Room. Landers’ latest book, FRANKLINSTEIN, tells the story of one Philadelphia neighborhood wrestling with the legacies of colonialism, racism, and capitalism. She is also the author of 248 MGS., A PANIC PICNIC and COVERS. Her chapbooks include 15: A Poetic Engagement with the Chicago Manual of Style and What I Was Tweeting While You Were On Facebook. She was the founding editor of the journal Pom2 and has an MFA from George Mason University. She lives in Brooklyn. You can follow her on Twitter @suelanders. The evening with also feature a first ever group reading with UNO poetry students from Carolyn Hembree and John Gery’s classes including: Joseph Buckley, Jessica Collins, Thomas Dollbaum, Andrew Kindiger, Karen Maceira, Elle Magnuson, Heidi McKinley, Jacquelyn Nasti, Katie Pfalzgraff, Spencer Silverthorne, Ann Hackett, Ashley Hamrick, Michelle Hoover, Robin Johnstone, Justin Lamb, Ellie Lindner, Ally Nobles, Edie Talley , Shaina Monet, and Clare Welsh.

& At 7 pm Wednesday Elizabeth Desimone, a local author and teacher, will lead a creative writing seminar at 7 the Jefferson Parish East Bank Regional Library. The presentation is free of charge and is open to the public. Registration is not required. Desimone will focus on dialog. At various points in her life, Elizabeth Desimone has been a paralegal, a bookseller, a teacher, a cashier, and a make-believe cross-dressing Arabian pirate, but she says, she has never not been a writer. In 2012, she received her MFA in fiction-writing from Oklahoma State University. Her work has appeared in Cricket magazine and on BustedHalo.com. She’s been working on a YA fantasy series for the past five years. She was born in Laplace.

& Friday at 6 pm Tubby and Coo’s Bookshop hosts the launch Stacey Balkun’s debut poetry book, JACKALOPE GIRL LEARNS TO SPEAK. Stacey will read from the book, and we will also feature readings from: Jen Hanks, Jade Hurter, Z.W. Mohr and Christopher Romaguera. “THERE WILL BE BUNNIES! THERE WILL BE ANTLERS! THERE WILL BE WHISKEY COCKTAILS! AND THERE WILL BE HOMEMADE CARROT BEER!” Mythical creature costumes encouraged!

& Saturday at 1:30 at the Alvar Library n New Orleans poet and performer Valentine Pierce continues her five-part poetry workshop for adults. Novice writers, as well as poets with some experience, are enclouraged to attend. Get inspired and write some dynamic poetry for 2016! Participation at all 5 workshops is suggested, but not required. Participants will be invited to read their poetry at a public reading when the program is completed. Sign up in advance at the Alvar Library circulation desk.

& Saturday at 5 pm brings a Book Launch Party for The Fry Pans Aren’t Sufficing by Peyton Burgess at Sisters In Christ, 5206 Magazine St. With readings by Anna Schulte, Joe Gehringer, Jade Stewart, Amber Kinui, Anya Groner, and Peyton Burgess. Loud music provided by Sisters in Christ music store. Many drinks and some food provided!

&Sunday at 3 pm the Maple Leaf Reading Series features Poet Ingrid Elena Pavia presents a farewell reading before moving to Idaho, followed by an open mic. This is the oldest continuous reading series in the south, curated by Nancy Harris. Ms. Harris is soliciting featured readers for the remaining two open weekends in May.

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans April 25, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& Tuesday at 4 pm at the Keller Library the New Orleans Youth Open Mic (NOYOM) is excited to host monthly writing workshops. Facilitated by Team Slam New Orleans (SNO) founding member and #NOYOM committee member Akeem Martin, the workshops will help youth learn new writing skills and improve upon the ones they already have in a fun, structured space. Attendees will have the chance to submit work to be published in the NOYOM Youth Anthology. Open to all 7th – 12th graders.

& At 7 pm at Edith S. Lawson Library in Westwego the West Bank Fiction Writers Group meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month. Members perform writing exercises, discuss fiction and critique the writing of fellow authors. Gary Bourgeois moderates.

& Wednesday at 6 pm Octavia Books hosts a presentation and signing with award-winning photojournalist Leon Morris featuring and his new book, HOMAGE: New Orleans. The book serves as a tribute to the vitality of the city’s people and culture. HOMAGE is a photographic journey through New Orleans’ influence on contemporary music. This elegantly designed book includes over 300 images capturing the personalities and performances of some of the most influential and impactful jazz, soul, world, roots and blues legends of our times. Featured artists include New Orleans greats like Dr John, the Neville Brothers, Irma Thomas and Wynton Marsalis, and jazz and blues legends like Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins, Nina Simone, and Cab Calloway. The aforementioned images are accompanied by essays and personal anecdotes on the musicians, the music industry, the central role of New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta in the development of contemporary music, and explains the evolving role of music photography from the point of view of an artist.

& Also at 6 pm Wednesday Garden District Book Shop presents Darlyn Finch Kuhn and Sewing Holes. A little girl grows up in the 1960s and 70s in a family with a volatile mother, a loving but very ill father, a brother who flees the country to evade the draft, a foster sister whose life is consumed by waiting for her real parents to return, and a best friend who likes to beat her up. She survives on stories told to her by her father, particularly the one about “sewing holes”—creating beauty out of what seems to be nothing.

& Wednesday at 8 pm Esoterotica Investigates the XXX-Files, A Night of Fandom Fetish for All Kinds at the Allways Lounge.

& The Jazz Fest Book Tent signings for the coming week include: Thursday: Michael Murphy, 12-1PM,
Hear Dat; Leif Pedersen, 1-2PM, Swamp Kids: A Dog Named Cat; Richard Campenella, 2-3PM, Photojournalism of Del Hall Cheryl Gerber, 3-4PM, New Orleans: Life and Death in the Big Easy; John Pope, 4-5PM, Getting Off At Elysian Fields; Alexis Braud, 5-6PM, Parade. Friday: Johnny Goldstein & Michael Lydon, 12-1PM, Elegy of the Lost City; Elvis Costello, 1-2PM, Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink; Laura Cayouette, 2-3PM, Secret of the Other Mother; Roger Hahn, 3-4PM, Sounds of Louisiana. Saturday: Todd Mouton, 12-1PM, Way Down in Louisiana; Mary Millan (Bloody Mary), 1-2PM, Bloody Mary’s Guide to Hauntings, Horrors, and Dancing With the Dead : True Stories from the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans; Peter Finney, 2-3 PM, The Best of Peter Finney; Tom Piazza, 3-4PM, Free State; Poppy Tooker, 4-5PM, Tujague’s Cookbook: Creole Recipes and Lore in the New Orleans Grand Tradition; Sunday: Alex Cook, 1-2 PM, Seat Yourself: The Best of South Louisiana’s Local Diners, Lunch Houses, and Roadside Stops; Big Freedia, 2-3PM, Big Freedia: God Save the Queen Diva!; Rien Fertel, 3-4PM, One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog; Johnette Downing, 4-5PM, Louisiana, the Jewel of the Deep South.

& Thursday at 5 pm the Smith Library hosts a Teen Creative Writing Workshop. Patrons 12-17 are invited to create an original work of short fiction (up to 20 pages) for a group workshop, led by Luke Sirinides, Young Adult library associate at Smith Library and MFA graduate. (Reservations are required; contact Luke at 596-2638.)

& Peter Cooley, Ph.D., Poet Laureate for the State of Louisiana, will discuss the importance of poetry at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the East Bank Regional Library. This presentation is free of charge and is open to the public. Registration is not required. Dr. Cooley is Director of Creative Writing, Professor of English, and Senior Mellon Professor in the Humanities, at Tulane University.

& Also at 7 pm at the East Jefferson Regional Library SciFi, Fantasy and Horror Writer’s Group meets. The purpose of the group is to encourage local writers to create works of fiction based on science fiction, fantasy and horror themes. Participants submit manuscripts to be critiqued by others in the group. Open to all levels. Free of charge and open to the public. No registration.

& Saturday at 1:30 the Alvar Library continues New Orleans poet and performer Valentine Pierce five-part poetry workshop for adults. Novice writers, as well as poets with some experience, are encouraged to attend. Get inspired and write some dynamic poetry for 2016! Participation at all 5 workshops is suggested, but not required. Participants will be invited to read their poetry at a public reading when the program is completed. Sign up in advance at the Alvar Library circulation desk.

& Next Sunday at 3 pm. The Maple Leaf Poetry Series, founded by beloved poet Everett Maddox and curated by poet Nancy Harris, is the longest running poetry reading series in the South. This week features an open mic.

& At 6 pm Team Slam New Orleans (Team SNO) hosts May Open Mic and Slam Featuring WORDZ the Poet EMCEE at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center.  $5 admission.

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans April 17, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& Meet Amber Tamblyn, actress, writer, film director, and poet, when she reads from and signs DARK SPARKLER at Octavia Books on Monday at 6 pm. Here is the American starlet: discovered, disrobed, displaced, disused, disgorged. In more than thirty haunting, visceral poetic portraits, acclaimed poet and actress Amber Tamblyn contemplates the interior lives of women who glimmered on-screen and crashed in life figures as diverse as Frances Farmer and Brittany Murphy, Jayne Mansfield and Dana Plato, Jean Harlow and Sharon Tate, Heather O’Rourke and Dominique Dunne and Marilyn Monroe. Their stories invite us behind the eyes of a century’s worth of women, the adored and the disappeared.

& Also at 6 pm Monday The East Jefferson Writer’s Group meets at the East Jefferson Regional Library. This is a critique group for serious fiction writers of all levels who want to improve their story development skills. This group focuses on discussing story development and writing elements and applying critiquing skills in romance, adventure, mystery, literature (but not genres of SciFi, Fantasy, Horror of the Thursday Sci-FI Writers). Short stories, novels, screenplays, plays, comics are accepted; however, non-fiction, such as poetry, biography, autobiography, essays, or magazine articles is not. Free and open to the public. No registration.

& At 6:30 pm Monday the New Orleans Public Library hosts Poetry on Tap. Come celebrate National Poetry month with us at the Old Point Bar. Have a drink, and share some words. . . . Read your original work or some pieces by your favorite poets (or songwriters, because it’s Jazz Appreciation Month too!). Funny, sad, long, short . . . we want them all!

& Tuesday Garden District Book Shops features William Barnwell’s Called to Heal the Brokenhearted: Stories from Kairos Prison Ministry International. In this stirring book, William H. Barnwell tells the stories of prison inmates and the Kairos Prison Ministry volunteers who work with them. Set mostly at the huge Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Barnwell’s narrative illustrates how offenders who have done the worst can and do change, becoming model inmates and, if released, productive citizens. The stories also reveal how Kairos volunteers have found healing for broken hearts. Now serving 300 state and federal prisons, 30,000 Kairos volunteers work with 20,000 inmates each year. They take part in long weekend retreats with the inmates and follow up with regular prison visits. Since its beginning in 1976, Kairos has served over 250,000 inmates. Broad-based, nondenominational, and nonjudgmental Christian, Kairos seeks to carry out its slogan–“listen, listen, love, love”–among inmates who have had few to listen to them, and fewer still to love them.

& At 8 pm Tuesday the New Orleans Public Library and Esoterotica “Get Between the Covers.” Join NOPL and Esoterotica upstairs at Mimi’s in the Marigny to bring you an evening of lascivious language and sensual stanzas pulled both from the stacks and personal experience.

& Thursday at 5 pm the Smith Library hosts a Teen Creative Writing Workshop. Patrons 12 – 17 are invited to create short works of fiction and participate in writing games and exercises. Open to all types of writers interested in all types of stories. Reservations required; contact Luke at 596-2638.

& At 5:30 pm Thursday The Booked for Murder Book Club meets at the Norman Mayer Library.

& Thursday at 7 pm Celebrate Poetry Month with Loyola Professor Mark Yakich at the East Jefferson Regional Library. He will discuss the importance of poetry. This presentation is free of charge and is open to the public. Registration is not required. This event is held in honor of National Poetry Month, held each April to celebrate, increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States. Dr. Yakich is editor of New Orleans Review. He is the author of Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross (National Poetry Series, Penguin 2004), The Making of Collateral Beauty (Snowbound Chapbook Award, Tupelo 2006), Green Zone New Orleans (Press Street 2008), The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine (Penguin 2008), Checking In/Checking Out (NO Books), and A Meaning for Wife (Ig Publishing 2011). With Christopher Schaberg, he is also co-founder and co-editor of airplanereading.org, a new media project that aims to rejunvenate airplane reading. In spring 2012, Dr. Yakich was a Fulbright Fellow in the Faculty of Letters at the University of Lisbon

& Join Please Octavia Books Thursday at 6 pm, on the eve of Jazz Fest 2016, for a presentation and signing with Michael Murphy celebrating the release of HEAR DAT NEW ORLEANS, a charmingly irreverent guide to the thriving, world-famous music scene in New Orleans. One of the first questions visitors to New Orleans often ask is, “Where can I go to hear music?” A better question might be, “Where can I go and not hear music?” Music is everywhere in this city, but to experience the best of it, you need the right guide. In Hear Dat New Orleans, local expert Michael Murphy brings his signature offbeat sensibility to the Big Easy’s largest tourist draw. With in-depth recommendations for the greatest venues, the best musicians, and the must-see festivals, Hear Dat New Orleans is an indispensable companion for anyone who wants to really experience the sounds of New Orleans live and uncensored.

& Also on Thursday at 6 pm Garden District Book Shop hosts Melissa Ginsburg’s Sunset City. Before the drugs, Danielle Reeves was Charlotte Ford’s most loyal and vibrant friend. She helped Charlotte through her mother’s illness and death, and opened up about her own troubled family. The two friends were inseparable, reveling in Houston’s shadowy corners. But then Danielle’s addiction got the best of her and she went to prison for four years. When she gets out, she and Charlotte reconnect. Charlotte hopes this is a new start for their friendship. But then, a detective shows up at Charlotte’s apartment. Danielle has been murdered, bludgeoned to death. Overwhelmed by grief, Charlotte is determined to understand how the most alive person she has ever known could end up dead. But the deeper Charlotte descends into Danielle’s dark world, the less she understands. Was Danielle a hapless victim or master manipulator? Was she really intent on starting over or was it all an act? To find out the truth, Charlotte must keep her head clear and her guard up. Houston has a way of feeding on bad habits and Charlotte doesn’t want to get swallowed whole, a victim of her own anguished desires.

& At Maple Street Book Shop on Thursday at 6 PM celebrate the release of Adrian Van Young’ new book, Shadows in Summerland. Boston, 1859. A nation on the brink of war. Confidence men prowl the streets for fresh marks. Mediums swindle the newly bereaved. Into this world of illusion and intrigue comes William Mumler, a manipulating mastermind and criminal jeweler. Mumler hopes to make his fortune by photographing spirits for Boston’s elite. The key to his venture: a shy girl named Hannah who sees and manifests the dead and washes up on Boston’s harbor along with her strange, intense mother, Claudette. As Mumler and Hannah’s fame grows throughout Boston, everybody wants a piece: Bill Christian, a brothel tough; Algernon Child, a drunken rival; Fanny A. Conant, a sly suffragette; and William Guay, a religious fanatic. These rogues among a host of others, including the great spirit rapper Kate Fox, form powerful bonds with the spirit photographers, one of which will end in murder. Mumler’s first and last mistake: the dead cannot be made to heel. Roughly based on the real-life story of William H. Mumler, spirit photographer and his clairvoyant wife, Hannah Mumler, Shadows in Summerland immerses the reader in a shifting world of light and shade where nothing is quite what it seems at first glance. A soaring and resplendently Gothic novel spanning three decades, it is as much an homage to the Golden Age ghost stories of Edith Wharton and Henry James as it is a companion to the revisionist historical epics of Peter Carey and Sarah Waters, with a little steampunk all its own.

& New Orleans Gulf South Booksellers Association once again operates the Jazz Fest Book Tent. Book signings for week one of the festival include:

• Friday
• Michael Murphy, 12-1PM, Hear Dat
• Keith Polk, 1-2PM, Mardi Grasfish

• Saturday
• Michael Zell, 12-1PM, Run Baby Run
• Todd Mouton, 1-2PM, Way Down in Lousiana
• Tom Piazza, 3-4PM, Free State
• Sally Asher & Meagan Baccinelli, 4-5PM, Stories from St. Louis Cemeteries & New Orleans Neighborhoods
• Peggy Scott Laborde, 5-6PM, New Orleans Mardi Gras Moments

• Sunday
• Ann Benoit, 12-1PM, New Orleans’ Best Seafood Cookbook
• Cheryl Gerber, 1-2PM, New Orleans: Life and Death in the Big Easy
• Julie Smith, 3-4PM, New Orleans Noir: The Classics
• Leon Morris, 4-5PM, Homage: New Orleans
• Laura Dragon, 5-6PM, Bayou Bogeyman Presents Hoodoo and Voodoo

& Saturday at 10 am the East Jefferson Regional Library hosts The Monthly Meeting of the Southern Louisiana Chapter of the Romance Writers of America features guest speakers who discuss all aspects of writing, editing and publishing. Topics frequently explore topics other than romance writing though they focus on subjects that make writers better at their craft

& Beginning this Saturday at 1:30 pm New Orleans poet and performer Valentine Pierce will lead a five-part poetry workhop for adults. Novice writers, as well as poets with some experience, are enclouraged to attend. Get inspired and write some dynamic poetry for 2016! Participation at all 5 workshops is suggested, but not required. Participants will be invited to read their poetry at a public reading when the program is completed. Sign up in advance at the Alvar Library circulation desk.

& Sunday at 3 pm the Maple Leaf Reading Series hosts its annual Jazz Fest open mic at the Maple Leaf Bar. This is the oldest continuous reading series in the south, and also presents featured readers.

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans April 11, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& This coming weekend brings New Orleans first Poetry Festival, sponsored by local publishers Trembling Pillow Press and Lavender Ink Press. The event will host more than 60 poets from New Orleans and around the nation for a day of readings, panels and workshops, with a Small Press Fair featuring books by participants along with book-making demonstrations, tarot readings,
workshops and more. New Orleans poet and author Rodger Kamenetz will lead a workshop on dreams and poetry . Saturday brings a full day of panels and workshops, with the details available on the website. Highlight events include:

• Poets with Bands, Friday night at SIBERIA, 2227 St. Claude Ave., featuring: Skin Verb, Bruce Andrews with Rob Cambre & Donald Miller, The Call Girls and Shock Patina.
• Saturday night’s reading at 7 pm at MAGS, 940 Elysian Fields, including poets Laura Mullen, Pierre Joris, Nicole Peyraffite, Niyi Osundare and Adeena Karasick.
• The weekend closes with open mic at the Maple Leaf Poetry Reading at the Maple Leaf Bar at 3 pm. This is the oldest continuous reading series in the south hosted by Nancy Harris.

Information on the featured readers and panelists can be found here.

& Monday at 6 pm Octavia Books hosts Raif Shwayri’s family history BEIRUT ON THE BAYOU: Alfred Nicola, Louisiana, and the Making of Modern Lebanon. Shwayri begins his family’s story with his grandfather Habib Shwayri’s arrival at Ellis Island in 1902 and making his way to relatives in New Orleans. There, he began peddling down the Bayou Lafourche, befriending the communities living alongside the water and earning the nickname Sweet Papa for his kindness and generosity. When he returned home to Lebanon in 1920, he invested the money he had made, from years of peddling, in real estate and died a wealthy man in 1956. Nicola’s story, like the story of Lebanon itself, begins farther back in history. In its account of centuries of Ottoman rule, decades of colonial occupation, and years of internal political strife and civil war, Beirut on the Bayou intertwines a family narrative with the story of a people, of Lebanon in the making.

& Also at 6 pm Monday Garden District Book Shop presents William Joyce’s Ollie’s Odyssey. Can a beloved but lost stuffed rabbit save himself and other Losts from becoming the most feared designation of all: The Forgotten? Find out in this epic quest from the author of The Guardians series and the creative force behind The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Oswald is a favorite. Of all the toys in Billy’s home, the stuffed rabbit takes top rank: everywhere Billy goes, so goes Oz. But being a favorite is more than a privilege—it’s also fraught with danger. Because of Zozo. Zozo has never been a favorite. An amusement park prize who was never chosen, Zozo has grown so bitter that, when the amusement park closes, he seeks revenge on every toy lucky enough to be a favorite. He wants them all to become The Lost, and even better, Forgotten. When Billy accidentally leaves Oz under the table at a wedding, Oz finds himself on an unplanned adventure, kidnapped by the nefarious Zozo and his gang of creeps and faced with the momentous task of saving not only himself, but all the other stuffies who are “lost” as well…

& Also at 6 pm the NOLALIT Book Club meets at the Columns Hotel to discuss Susan Larson’s The Booklover’s Guide to New Orleans.

& Tuesday at 7 pm Antenna’s Room 220 is pleased to present the New Orleans book launch for Carolyn Hembree’s Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague, a collection of her poetry published by Trio House Press. The book won the 2015 Trio Award, selected by Neil Shepard, and the 2015 Marsh Hawk Press Rochelle Ratner Memorial Award, selected by Stephanie Strickland. The event will take place at 2231 St. Claude Ave, the former Tete Auto Body Shop and soon to be new home of Frenchmen Art Market. Sara Slaughter will also read, and Maple Street Books will be on hand to sell copies of Hembree’s books. Hembree is a poet and beloved teacher of English and creative writing at the University of New Orleans. Her first poetry collection, Skinny, was published by Kore Press in 2012 and her chapbook by Nous-zot Press in 2015. Her work has appeared in a variety of respected publications, including DIAGRAM, Colorado Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, jubilat, and Poetry Daily. Slaughter is a poet and teacher of writing at Lusher Charter School. Her first chapbook, Upriver, was published by Press Street Press in 2014. Her work has recently appeared in New World Writing, The Cortland Review, and PANK.

& Also at 7 pm Tuesday the West Bank Fiction Writers Group meets the second and fourth Tuesdays of each month at the Edith Lawson Library in Westwego. Members perform writing exercises, discuss fiction and critique the writing of fellow authors. Gary Bourgeois moderates.

& Please join Octavia Books for a special evening with #1 New York Times bestselling author and master of narrative nonfiction Erik Larson when he presents DEAD WAKE: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania. The event will take place at the JCC (5342 St. Charles Ave.) on Tuesday at 7 pm. To attend, you must purchase a ticket from Octavia Books. ABOUT THE BOOK: On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were surprisingly at ease, even though Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone. For months, German U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds”—the fastest liner then in service—and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger’s U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the Lusitania made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small—hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more—all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.

& Wednesday at 6 pm at Octavia Books meet Vivian Swift, author of Men>GARDENS OF AWE AND FOLLY…An engaging guide to gardens in locales ranging from Key West and post-Katrina New Orleans to Paris (‘gardening capital of the world’) and Marrakech . . . whimsical.” </em?– Kirkus Reviews. Nine masterpiece gardens. Nine stories of grandeur, sorrow, disaster, triumph, discovery, and joy. From Scotland to Key West, from Brazil to Paris–even right next door–there is always something to learn about being human from a great garden.

& Also at 6 pm Wednesday Maple Street Book Shop hosts an evening with Courtney B Lance and Nikki D. Pope, the authors of Pruno, Ramen, and a side of Hope, a book of uplifting stories of innocent people who survived the ordeal of incarceration and were eventually set free. The event will be co-sponsored by the Innocence Project New Orleans. Innocence Project New Orleans (IPNO) is a nonprofit law office that represents innocent prisoners serving life sentences in Louisiana and Mississippi at no cost to them or their loved ones, and assists them with their transition into the free world upon their release. IPNO uses its cases to explain how wrongful convictions happen and what we can all do to prevent them. IPNO works with legislators, judges, lawyers, law enforcement and policymakers to protect the innocent within the criminal justice system.

& At the Alvar Library at 6 pm Wednesday there is a Poetry Reading with Louisiana Poet Laureat Peter Cooley. To celebrate Poetry Month, Dr. Cooley will headline a poetry reading, performing along with the participants of the workshop (held earlier on April 6). Local poet Lee Grue will MC the reading and introduce the poets.

& At 7 pm Wednesday Esoterotica presents “Our Fantasy Love Letters” at the Always Lounge. Esoterotica’s local provocateurs invite you to a singualrly sexy and evocative night of original erotic fantasy all in the form of love letters. These are letters to those we have not yet met but hope to, to those we had not yet had the courage to write, for lovers from a past when we had not yet found our words, or lovers present about a future with them we hope to see.

& At 6 pm Thursday the Maple Street Book Shop Book Club features Eula Biss’ On Immunity. Local author Anya Groner is guest facilitator. The book club choice will be available at 10% off at the store. Refreshments will be served.

& Also at 6 pm Thursday Katie Parla’s Tasting Rome: Fresh Flavors and Forgotten Recipes from an Ancient City is featured at the Garden District Book Shop. ven 150 years after unification, Italy is still a divided nation where individual regions are defined by their local cuisine. Each is a mirror of its city’s culture, history, and geography. Butcucina romana is the country’s greatest standout. Tasting Rome provides a complete picture of a place that many love, but few know completely. In sharing Rome’s celebrated dishes, street food innovations, and forgotten recipes, journalist Katie Parla and photographer Kristina Gill capture its unique character and reveal its truly evolved food culture—a culmination of 2000 years of history. Their recipes acknowledge the foundations of Roman cuisine and demonstrate how it has transitioned to the variations found today. Studded with narrative features that capture the city’s history and gorgeous photography that highlights both the food and its hidden city, you’ll feel immediately inspired to start tasting Rome in your own kitchen.

& Renowned litigator Roberta Kaplan presents the gripping story of her defeat of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court at a major community event at Temple Sinai on Thursday, hosted by Temple Sinai, Forum for Equality, and Federal Bar Association New Orleans Chapter. Doors open at 5:45 pm. Octavia Books will have copies of THEN COMES MARRIAGE: United States v. Windsor and the Defeat of DOMA for sale at the event. Roberta Kaplan will sign books beginning at 6:00 pm before her presentation which begins at 7pm, and immediately following the presentation.

& Also at 7 pm Thursday the Nix Library Book Club meets to discuss A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor.

& The East Jefferson Regional Library continues its celebration of National Poetry Month Thursday at 7 pm. Bill Lavender, a poet, novelist, editor and teacher living in New Orleans, will speak at 7 p.m., on Thursday, April 14. He founded Lavender Ink, a small press devoted mainly to poetry, in 1995, and he founded Diálogos, an imprint devoted to cross-cultural literatures (mostly in translation) in 2011. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in dozens of print and web journals and anthologies, with theoretical writings appearing in Contemporary Literature and Poetics Today, among others.

& Also at 7 pm at the East Jefferson Regional Library the SciFi, Fantasy and Horror Writer’s Group meets. The purpose of the group is to encourage local writers to create works of fiction based on science fiction, fantasy and horror themes. Participants submit manuscripts to be critiqued by others in the group. Open to all levels. Free of charge and open to the public. No registration.

& On Friday in Honor of Big Class’s Pizza Poetry Project, Maple Street Book Shop will be serving pizza for lunch. The store will donate 10% of the day’s sales to Big Class. The Pizza Poetry Project celebrates National Poetry Month and the power of youth voices by publishing poems by New Orleans’ writers ages 6-18. Working together with Reginelli’s, Pizza Delicious, Dolce Vita, Garage Pizza, Mid City Pizza, Theo’s and G’s Pizza (who generously donate 10% of their proceeds to Big Class’s free youth writing programs). Big Class publishes poems of all kinds on pizza boxes, order from the previously mentioned locations for delivery and pick up on April 15 to receive a pizza box with a poem! Pizza eaters/poetry readers post their poems on Twitter and Instagram using #pizzapoetry16. learn more by visiting Big Class at: http://bigclass.org/pizzapoetry/ or follow our blog on Tumblr at http://pizza-poetry-blog.tumblr.com/.

& Saturday at 10 am at the East Jefferson Regional Library brings the Monthly Meeting of the Southern Louisiana Chapter of the Romance Writers of America features guest speakers who discuss all aspects of writing, editing and publishing. Topics frequently explore topics other than romance writing though they focus on subjects that make writers better at their craft.

& Saturday at 10:30 am The Octavia Books Book Club meets the third Saturday of each month. This month they are reading HALF OF A YELLOW SUN. All are welcome, and members receive 10% off book club selections.

& At 11:30 at Saturday Maple Street Book Shop will feature George Sanchez, author of the new mystery, A Place Unchanged. He will be reading from and signing copies of the new book, the third in the Jeff Chaussier series. “The third Jeff Chaussier mystery finds Jeff returning to New Orleans. This time he has marriage on his mind. New Orleans, though, is far too seductive a lady and too wrapped in secrecy for a straightforward narrative to unfold. Things seem hopeful at the start. Bryna no longer has her brother’s child to care for. Jeff is tired of the life of an itinerant actor and is also unusually flush with money from a London engagement. Things are on track, even though the flight home (his least favorite form of transportation) has left him woozy from self-medication. He wakes to an uncertain morning, unclear whose bed it is he finds himself in. Luckily, it’s Bryna who is obeying his mother instructions on what to do with him on arrival. Memory happily restored, Jeff lolls in bed as Bryna goes downstairs to prepare breakfast. Jeff expects a meal, not muffled screams and a slamming door. Dashing downstairs, he chases the intruders out the door, handicapped by his lack of clothing and irked that Bryna was taken in the same state. “

& Saturday at 11:30 pm Join the editor of and contributors to THE BAYOU BOGEYMAN PRESENTS HOODOO AND VODOO for a signing at Octavia Books. The night might have started as a normal camping trip, but it soon becomes a nightmare from the swamp when a group of students are joined by the Bayou Bogeyman! With their teacher missing and no way home, the children have no choice but to play the Bogeyman’s twisted game: tell a campfire story spooky enough to satisfy the monster’s appetite or get eaten alive! This supernatural collection features spine-tingling tales from nine different Louisiana writers, each with their own share of screams to add to the trove of Southern lore. Be warned: you may need to sleep with one eye open.

& Sunday at 2 pm Rheta Grimsley Johnson shares and signs THE DOGS BURIED OVER THE BRIDGE: A Memoir in Dog Years at Octavia Books. Nationally syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson uses a parade of beloved dogs to take readers on a colorful journey. It’s not really a dog book in the Old Yeller sense; it’s a personal story that uses dogs as metaphors for love, loss, and life. Meet Rheta’s eccentric neighbors, her friends, her three husbands, and-best of all-her dogs. She introduces Monster, “a big galoot of a mutt, the variegated color of a hand-knitted sweater a dour aunt might give you for Christmas”; Humphrey, who spent much of one night in an apartment complex “patiently lining stolen shoes up at our back door like a clearance rack at Payless”; Mabel (pronounced May-Belle), the first of the dogs to be buried “over the bridge” in Rheta’s sad little dog cemetery, who was “so beautiful that it never really mattered how much toilet paper she shredded, whose hairbrush she destroyed, where she sat or slept. . . . Scolding Mabel would have been stomping a rose”; and Pogo and Albert, who taught Rheta that “grief can kill you, whatever your species. It isn’t pretty, and it’s a walk you must take alone.” There are other dogs as well, for hers has been a life that measures its quality in canines.

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans April 4, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& Monday at 7 pm at the East Jefferson Regional Library the East Jefferson Writer’s Group meets. This is a critique group for serious fiction writers of all levels who want to improve their story development skills. This group focuses on discussing story development and writing elements and applying critiquing skills in romance, adventure, mystery, literature (but not genres of SciFi, Fantasy, Horror of the Thursday Sci-FI Writers). Short stories, novels, screenplays, plays, comics are accepted; however, non-fiction, such as poetry, biography, autobiography, essays, or magazine articles is not. Free and open to the public. No registration.

& Tuesday at 7 pm at the Columns Hotel Kiese Laymon, author of the novel Long Division and the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America, is 1718’s featured reader in April. Laymon is a black southern writer, born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. Long Division was named one of the Best of 2013 by Buzzfeed, The Believer, Salon, Guernica, Contemporary Literature, Mosaic Magazine, Library Journal, Chicago Tribune and the Crunk Feminist Collective. It was also short-listed for the Believer Book Award, the Ernest Gaines Award and the Morning News Tournament of Books. Long Division won the 2014 Saroyan International Writing Award on November 10th. Three essays in How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America have been included in the Best American series, the Best of Net award, and the Atlantic’s Best Essays of 2013. He was selected a member of the Root 100 in 2013 and 2014 and Ebony Magazine Power 100 in 2015.

& Also at 7 pm Tuesday the Old Metairie Library Great Books Discussion Group meets to talk about The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy.

& Wednesday at 6 pm at the New Orleans Main Branch Library celebrate the 10th anniversary of New Orleans Noir and the release of New Orleans Noir: The Classics with editor Julie Smith and contributors from both volumes. Short readings will be followed by a discussion and audience Q&A. Octavia Books will have copies of both volumes available for sale at the program. Refreshments will be served.

& Also at 6 pm Wednesday Louisiana’s Poet Laureate Dr. Peter Cooley will be leading a poetry writing workshop at Alvar Library for 15 participants. There will be a reading the following week by the workshop participants at Alvar Library, MC’d by local poet Lee Grue. If someone wants to be in Dr. Peter Cooley’s workshop they need to email Emilie Staat: estaat@neworleanspubliclibrary.org They need to send Emilie a poem that they would like to be “workshopped.” Dr. Peter Cooley’s workshop is limited to 15 participants.

& Meet Richard B. Crowell, author of Chenier Plain at Octavia Books at 6 pm Wednesday. Crowell chronicles the history and economic development of a region in southwest Louisiana defined by unique geologic formations and distinguished by its position beneath the Mississippi flyway. Crowell traces the evolution of this region’s well-known sport hunting legacy, creating the first comprehensive narrative history of the area, from 1800 to today. In Chenier Plain, the author takes a fresh look at the decline of French and Spanish influence in coastal Louisiana and investigates an isolated region struggling to find its place against inhospitable conditions following the Civil War. In chronicling the Chenier Plain’s transition from a center of market hunting to one of sport hunting. Crowell draws together over 140 illustrations. He highlights the opportunistic land purchases by a US president, British and American businessmen, a university president, and an illiterate French-speaking Acadian whose property became the nexus of The Coastal Club, the oldest hunting lodge in the geographic region. These events, combined with the background of six hunting clubs established before 1929 and modern methods of waterfowl habitat conservation, illustrate how inextricably linked sport hunting is to the life and preservation of this remote Louisiana world of ridges and marsh.

& AT 7 pm Wednesday Tubby & Coo’s Mid-City Book Shop hosts Reading Between the Wines at the Pearl Wine Co. inside of the American Can Company. This month’s featured authors are; Stephanie Garrison was born and raised in the idyllic Mid-Hudson Valley of New York. Always a dabbler, it wasn’t until college where she tried her hand at playwriting. She fell in love with the form shortly after and has been writing plays since, even earning her MFA in dramatic writing from Adelphi University. She’s had a few productions in New York City, including a one act that made it to the semi-finals of the Harvest Theatre Festival. Shortly after, she moved down to New Orleans, her second home, with her husband, Bradley Warshauer. She still writes, and has had her pieces performed for Southern Rep’s 3×3, Elm Theatre, and her current piece, Solitary, was featured in the Two for Tennessee Festival. Kate Bailey is a playwright originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. She received her BA in Theatre Performance from Louisiana State University and her MFA in Playwriting from the University of New Orleans. Kate began playwriting in Chicago at Chicago Dramatists. She took classes there and participated in a few small short play festivals. In New Orleans, Kate is a part of Southern Rep’s 6×6 play slam/new play development series and a founding member of Generate INK, New Orleans’ first and only playwright-driven nonprofit. Her full-length play Strays debuted in New Orleans in June 2015 and her full-length play Pleading 894 will be performed in April 2016 as the Spring main stage show for the University of New Orleans.

& At 8 pm Wednesday at the Blood Jet Poetry Series at BJ’s in the Bywater Chanel Clarke, Gian Smith, and Whit “The Whitness” Wddington read. Clarke is a graduate of Tulane University and the University of Texas-Austin, where she received a fellowship from the Michener Center for Writers. Her work has been featured in a variety of journals, including smoking glue gun, EveryDay Genius, Flag and Void, Bayou Magazine, WomenArts Quarterly, and Hayden Ferry’s Review. She now works as a social worker in the New Orleans area. Smith is a New Orleans based artist. His craft spans over several media including writing, acting, and video production, but he is most notably recognized as a spoken word poet. Smith is also well known locally for his community organization including NOYOpresents: Pass It On open mic. Gian is a proud member of the Melanated Writers Collective. A group of writers of color in New Orleans which boasts a strong cast of talented individuals. Gian’s current focus is film making. After completing a first season for his web series “open mike” he went on to produce a short film “The Adulterer” which has been accepted into several film festivals.

& Thursday at 5 pm the Robert E. Smith Branch Library presents a Teen Writing Workshop. Patrons 12-17 are invited to create an original work of short fiction (up to 20 pages) for a group workshop, led by Luke Sirinides, Young Adult library associate at Smith Library and MFA graduate. (Reservations are required; contact Luke at 596-2638.

& Thursday at 6 pm Maple Street Book Shop will be hosting the book launch for Geoffrey Parker’s Platform Revolutions. Uber. Airbnb. Amazon. Apple. PayPal. All of these companies disrupted their markets when they launched. Today they are industry leaders. What’s the secret to their success? These cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Written by three of the most sought-after experts on platform businesses, Platform Revolution is the first authoritative, fact-based book on platform models. Platform Revolution teaches newcomers how to start and run a successful platform business, explaining ways to identify prime markets and monetize networks. Addressing current business leaders, the authors reveal strategies behind some of today’s up-and-coming platforms, such as Tinder and SkillShare, and explain how traditional companies can adapt in a changing marketplace. The authors also cover essential issues concerning security, regulation, and consumer trust, while examining markets that may be ripe for a platform revolution, including healthcare, education, and energy.

& Meet Lydia Pyne and editor Christopher Schaberg when they discuss BOOKSHELF at Octavia Books Thursday at 6 pm. Every shelf is different and every bookshelf tells a different story. One bookshelf can creak with character in a bohemian coffee shop and another can groan with gravitas in the Library of Congress. “Writer and historian Lydia Pyne finds bookshelves to be holders not just of books but of so many other things: values, vibes, and verbs that can be contained and displayed in the buildings and rooms of contemporary human existence. With a shrewd eye toward this particular moment in the history of books, Pyne takes the reader on a tour of the bookshelf that leads critically to this juncture: amid rumors of the death of book culture, why is the life of the bookshelf in full bloom? Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. It is published in partnership with an essay series in the The Atlantic.

& The Octavia Books Science Fiction Book Club meets the second Saturday of every month at 10:30 A.M. Members receive 10% off book club selections. This month the club is discussing THE SORCERER OF THE WILDEEPS. Everyone is welcome!

& At 11 am Saturday the New Orleans East Regional Library will hosts The Bibby Gumbo Book Club is New Orleans East’s first parent-baby book club. A series of interactive games along with an innovative craft session will infuse literacy and laughter

& Octavia Books hosts paperback book launch party & signing with author M.O. Walsh, Director of the creative writing program at UNO, featuring his Louisiana-based novel, MY SUNSHINE AWAY at 5:30pm Saturday at The Little Gem Saloon on S. Rampart St. My Sunshine Away unfolds in a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom. But in the summer of 1989, when fifteen-year-old Lindy Simpson free spirit, track star, and belle of the block experiences a horrible crime late one evening near her home, it becomes apparent that this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia has a dark side, too. In My Sunshine Away, M.O. Walsh brilliantly juxtaposes the enchantment of a charmed childhood with the gripping story of a violent crime, unraveling families, and consuming adolescent love. Acutely wise and deeply honest, it is an astonishing and page-turning debut about the meaning of family, the power of memory, and our ability to forgive.

& Saturday at 9 pm Antenna Gallery presents ANTENNA::SIGNALS at Castillo Blanco, 4321 St. Claude Ave. Conceived as a “live arts magazine,” ANTENNA::SIGNALS is a new sort of variety show by the artists and writers of Antenna. Each “issue” of Antenna::Signals will feature a spread of 8 local artists, writers, performers, or scholars whose practices relate thematically. The live event will be accompanied by the release of a two-dimensional print version, with each magazine dropping on a Second Saturday of the Month.

& On Sunday, April 10 at 3 pm Garden District Book Shop features John Hanson’s Farewell to an Angel: It All Began in Old New Orleans. The book gives the reader a personal view of the lives of a man and woman who were born, raised, worked, and found each other in the Crescent City. The man, John Hanson, was from the Carrollton neighborhood. The woman, Patty Callegan, was from the French Quarter. Their parents had only grammar school educations. They were poor, but not destitute. They always managed to shelter, clothe, and feed their families by dint of hard work. After starting on their memoirs, John had more time to work on his as Patty was simultaneously fighting cancer. Much of his memoirs are Patty’s, however, since they were inseparable from their meeting in 1966 until Patty’s death in 2014. A registered nurse and ever a patient advocate, Patty wrote only briefly of her life before nursing and marriage and only as an introduction to an exhaustive guide for cancer patients. Their story will at times evoke both tears and laughter. Overall, it will edify.

& Also at 3 pm Sunday the Maple Leaf Poetry Reading, the oldest, continuous reading series in the south, presents featured readers in all genres followed by an open mic. The April calendar of features is still TBA at this time.

Odd Words: This week in literary New Orleans February 28, 2016

This week in literary New Orleans:

& Monday at 6 pm Octavia Books hosts journalist Mary R. Arno presents and signs THANKSGIVING, her novel of memory and coming-of-age based on a short story that won the gold medal in the Faulkner Wisdom competition. New Orleans, Summer 1965: Nancy Drew, the Beatles, Hurricane Betsy. For four young people, it is a time for sailing lessons, clandestine cigarettes, facts of life, guilty secrets. Playing girl detectives, Peg and Emmaline hitchhike to the Winn Dixie, where Emmaline hopes to find her runaway sister. Harry, Emmaline’s brother, lurks on the edges of their toxic, disjointed family. As seasons and years go by, each of the four must come to terms with what happened that summer and what they did—or didn’t do. Thanksgiving slowly reveals the adult ugliness festering beneath the summer idylls of childhood.

& At 6 pm Tuesday Garden District Book Shops features Julie Smith (editor), Ace Atkins, Nevada Barr, O’Neil De Noux, and Maurice Ruffin with New Orleans Noir: The Classics. New Orleans’ tremendous literary tradition shines bright in this outstanding collection of stories from some of the best writers in American history. Julie Smith has masterfully curated this volume with stories published as early as 1843 and as recently as 2012. Classic reprints from: James Lee Burke, Armand Lanusse, Grace King, Kate Chopin, O. Henry, Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, Shirley Ann Grau, John William Corrington, Tom Dent, Ellen Gilchrist, Valerie Martin, O’Neil De Noux, John Biguenet, Poppy Z. Brite, Nevada Barr, Ace Atkins, and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. The 18 stories in this irresistible sequel to Smith’s New Orleans Noir run chronologically from Armand Lanusse’s A Marriage of Conscience (1843), about an unusual social custom of the day, to Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s Pie Man (2012), a powerful examination of ethnic tensions in post-Katrina New Orleans. Famous bylines punctuate the book, but even the lesser-known authors hold their own. Former New Orleans police office O’Neil De Noux’s The Man with Moon Hands has particular relevance in view of recent controversial police shootings. Ace Atkins’s Last Fair Deal Gone Down mixes New Orleans’s traditions of music and crime. There’s one outright ghost story, Poppy Z. Brite’s Mussolini and the Axeman’s Jazz, a surrealistic swirl of time travel and assassination. Anyone who knows New Orleans even slightly will relish revisiting the city in story after story. For anyone who has never been to New Orleans, this is a great introduction to its neighborhoods and history.

& Also at 6 pm Tuesday Octavia Books welcomes local activist Emilie Bahr when she introduces her book, URBAN REVOLUTIONS: A Woman’s Guide to Two-Wheeled Transportation. Urban Revolutions is a different kind of cycling book. Author Emilie Bahr draws on her own experience as an everyday cyclist and a transportation planner in New Orleans to demystify urban bicycling in this visually-compelling and fun-to-read field guide. What does it mean for a city to be bike-friendly? What makes bicycling a women’s issue? What does it take to feel safe on a bike? How do you bike to work in the summer and still look professional? What is the most fun you can possibly have on two wheels without having to become an athlete? Bahr answers all these questions and more in her friendly and thoughtful essays and detailed practical tips.

& At 7 pm Tuesday Tulane University presents an evening with Zadie Smith, 2016 Zale-Kimmerling Writer-in-Residence. Smith is the author of six books. Her acclaimed first novel, White Teeth (2000), a vibrant portrait of contemporary multicultural London, told through the stories of three ethnically diverse families, won a number of awards and prizes, including the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book), and two BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards (Best Book/Novel and Best Female Media Newcomer). It was also shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Author’s Club First Novel Award. The Autograph Man (2002), a story of loss, obsession and the nature of celebrity, won the 2003 Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize for Fiction. In 2003 and 2013 she was named by Granta magazine as one of 20 ‘Best of Young British Novelists’. On Beautywon the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction and her most recent novel, NW, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Women’s Prize for Fiction and was named as one of The New York Times ‘10 Best Books of 2012.’ Zadie Smith writes regularly for The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. She published a collection of essays, Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays(2009) and is working on a book of essays entitled Feel Free. She is currently a tenured professor of Creative Writing at New York University.

& Also at 7 pm Tuesday at the Old Metairie Library The Great Books Foundation meets.

& At 8 pm Tuesday at Bar Redux readers are invited to join the discussion with the beautiful, talented, smart, members of Picolla Tushy Presents The Bluestockings. This month we’ll be talking #GirlBoss by Sophia Amorusa. “Girlboss is a hub of inspiration to share stories about what creating an amazing life really means. Being a Girlboss isn’t about being the boss of other people – it’s about being the boss of your own life.”

& At 5 pm Wednesday The West Bank Book Club meets at the Algiers Regional Library to discuss their selection, which is usually literary fiction. Meetings are open to the public and are hosted by library staff

& Wednesday at 6 pm Garden District Book Shop presents Geneveive Munson Trimble’s Afton Villa:The Birth and Rebirth of a Ninteenth-Century Louisiana Garden. n 1963, fire ravaged the forty-room Victorian Gothic plantation home on the historic estate, bringing to ashes over 170 years of history. Over the next decade, its once-regal serpentine entryway and carefully laid out gardens gradually deteriorated, as vines strangled the rows of azaleas that once welcomed guests. A place of enchantment crumbled toward extinction. Afton Villa documents Trimble’s decades-long restoration project while providing a history of the original owners and paying tribute to the other people who contributed to its rebirth. Focusing on preservation, Trimble reveals how the garden’s original footprint survived as well as how she thoughtfully introduced new flora into the terraced landscape, including the foundation ruins of the house, under the guidance of landscape architect Neil G. Odenwald. With steep learning curves and devastating setbacks, including hurricane destruction, each milestone in the recovery of Afton Villa marked a triumph of collaborative will over adversity.

& At 7 pm Wednesday Reading Between the Wines at Pearl Wine Co. welcomes Eva Vanrell and her book THE BUTTERFLY CREST, heavily influenced by Japanese culture, and the Japan Society will also discuss their new book club! An ancient war. A long-told prophecy. A cursed inheritance. If you were destined to die, how would you choose to live? The Butterfly Crest is the first book in a series that tells the tale of a human girl who sacrifices everything to struggle against the inevitable, choosing to resist even when the outcome is doomed from the start. Join Elena as she suddenly finds herself in the middle of a Greek myth and an ancient war between gods, in a world where the old myths are real and human belief has the power to alter the divine. The Butterfly Crest was a 2014 Readers’ Favorite International Book Award Finalist.

& At BJ’s in the Bywater at 8 pm Wednesday Blood Jet Poetry Series returns for its spring season featuring: Bernard Pearce, a Louisiana native born in the rural community of St. Martin Parish. He attended St. John’s College in Santa Fe, NM and returned to Louisiana to pursue a life immersed in music and art. He has owned and operated several music and arts venues in Lafayette, Louisiana. Bernard has recorded and released two full length recordings with his band One Man Machine and has toured internationally with this group. Bernard has recently published a collection of poems, photos, and visual art entitled “The Deed to My Bones”. Also featured is Jim Trainer whose work has appeared in Raw Paw 6: Alien, The Waggle, Philadelphia Stories, Divergent Magazine, Anthology Philly, A Series of Moments and PoetryInk. The release of September, his second full length collection of poetry, coincides with the founding of Yellow Lark Press. Trainer lives in Austin, Texas where he serves as curator of Going For The Throat, a weekly publication of cynicism, outrage, correspondence and romance. Please visit jimtrainer.net.

& Also 8 pm the provocateurs of Estorotica present “Esoterotica knows Romance (Erotica) isn’t Dead, It’s Mysterious, Exciting, and Often Hilarious!” at the Allways Lounge. Doors at 7, show at 8. “…an evening of sex and romance and sexy romance, because we know Romance isn’t dead, especially when it’s also erotica… it’s mysterious, breath-taking, exciting, sometimes corny and when it comes to our show, often hilarious! ”

& Thursday at 6 pm Maple Street Books also welcomes Emilie Bahr, author of Urban Revolutions.

& At 7 pm Thursday the SciFi, Fantasy and Horror Writer’s Group meets at the East Jefferson Regional Library. The purpose of the group is to encourage local writers to create works of fiction based on science fiction, fantasy and horror themes. Participants submit manuscripts to be critiqued by others in the group. Open to all levels. Free of charge and open to the public. No registration.

& Also at 7 pm Thursday the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop will host two visiting readers in the Liberal Arts Building, Room 140.  Mark Yakich is a Professor of English at Loyola University New Orleans, USA, Editor of New Orleans Review, and a poet and novelist. He is the author of several collections of poetry including Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross and The Importance of Peeling Potatoes in Ukraine.  Jennifer S. Davis is the author of two collections of short stories, Her Kind of Want, winner of the Iowa Award for Short Fiction, and Our Former Lives in Art, which was selected by Barnes and Noble for the Discover Great New Writers Series

& At Octavia Books Thursday at 6 pm local writer Dr. Anne Boyd Rioux will be reading from and signing CONSTANCE FENIMORE WOOLSON: Portrait of a Lady Novelist and MISS GRIEF AND OTHER STORIES. Constance Fenimore Woolson (1840 1894), who contributed to Henry James’s conception of his heroine Isabelle Archer of The Portrait of a Lady, was one of the most accomplished American writers of the nineteenth century. The best known (and most misunderstood) facts of her life are her relationship with James and her suicide in Venice. Uncovering new sources, Anne Boyd Rioux provides a fuller picture of Woolson’s life, her fight against depression, her sources for her writing, and her capacity for love and joy. In her critically acclaimed fiction, Woolson created compelling and subtle portrayals of Americans from the Great Lakes, Reconstruction-era South, and formerly Spanish Florida. As an expat in Europe, she explored women’s thwarted ambitions while challenging the foremost male writers of her era. Ultimately, Rioux reveals an exceptionally gifted and committed artist who pursued (and received) serious recognition despite the stigma attached to female authors and to ambitious, single women.

& Also at 6 pm Thursday Garden District Book Shop hosts Chris Offutt and My Father the Pornographer. When Andrew Offutt died, his son, Chris, inherited a desk, a rifle, and 1800 pounds of porn. Andrew had been considered the “king of twentieth century smut,” a career that began as a strategy to pay for his son’s orthodontic needs and soon took on a life of its own, peaking during the ‘70s when the commercial popularity of the erotic novel was at its height. With his dutiful wife serving as typist, Andrew wrote from their home in the Kentucky hills, locked away in an office no one dared intrude upon. In this fashion he wrote 400 novels, ranging from pirate porn and ghost porn, to historical porn and time travel porn, to secret agent porn and zombie porn. The more he wrote, the more intense his ambition became, and the more difficult it was for his children to penetrate his world. Over one long summer in his hometown, helping his mother move out of the house, Chris began to examine his deceased father’s possessions and realized he finally had an opportunity to come to grips with the mercurial man he always feared but never understood. Offutt takes us on the journey with him, showing us how only in his father’s absence could he truly make sense of the man and his legacy.

& Friday at 6 pm Octavia Books features Authors Yuri Herrera, SIGNS PRECEDING THE END OF THE WORLD, and Lina Wolff, BRET EASTON ELLIS AND OTHER DOGS. Signs Preceding the End of the World is one of the most arresting novels to be published in Spanish in the last ten years. Yuri Herrera does not simply write about the border between Mexico and the United States and those who cross it. He explores the crossings and translations people make in their minds and language as they move from one country to another, especially when there’s no going back. Traversing this lonely territory is Makina, a young woman who knows only too well how to survive in a violent, macho world. Leaving behind her life in Mexico to search for her brother, she is smuggled into the USA carrying a pair of secret messages one from her mother and one from the Mexican underworld. At a run-down brothel in Caudal, Spain, the prostitutes are collecting stray dogs. Each is named after a famous male writer: Dante, Chaucer, Bret Easton Ellis. When a john is cruel, the dogs are fed rotten meat. To the east, in Barcelona, an unflappable teenage girl is endeavouring to trace the peculiarities of her life back to one woman: Alba Cambo, writer of violent short stories, who left Caudal as a girl and never went back. Mordantly funny, dryly sensual, written with a staggering lightness of touch, Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs by Swedish sensation Lina Wolff is a black and Bolano-esque take on the limitations of love in a dog-eat-dog world.

& Saturday at 11:30 am Maple Street hosts a Book Shop launch party of Z.W. Mohr’s children’s book, Desdemona’s Dreams, Volume 1: To Dream of Dancing. Raised in the small town of Remsy by her mysterious aunts and guardian teddy bear, eleven year old Desdemona has always had a hard time relating to the waking world. The elaborate world of dreams she often travels to starts to take on a very real life, and soon she is battling a mad maestro to keep her dream of dancing from being stolen away. This is the first book in the fully illustrated series, Desdemona’s Dreams. A story not only about the beauty of a child’s imagination, but how dreams shape the very world around us. Always remember, you’re dreams are worth fighting for.

& At 1 pm Saturday Garden District Book Shop presents C. S. Harris’s When Falcons Fall. yleswick-on-Teme, 1813. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, has come to this seemingly peaceful Shropshire village to honor a slain friend and on a quest to learn more about his own ancestry. But when the body of a lovely widow is found on the banks of the River Teme, a bottle of laudanum at her side, the village’s inexperienced new magistrate turns to St. Cyr for help. Almost immediately, Sebastian realizes that Emma Chance did not, in truth, take her own life. Less easy to discern is exactly how she died, and why. For as Sebastian and Hero soon discover, Emma was hiding both her true identity and her real reasons for traveling to Ayleswick.Home to the eerie ruins of an ancient monastery, Ayleswick reveals itself to be a dark and dangerous place of secrets that have festered among the villagers for decades—and a violent past that may be connected to Sebastian’s own unsettling origins. And as he faces his most diabolical opponent ever, he is forced to consider what malevolence he’s willing to embrace in order to destroy a killer.

& At 2 pm Saturday the Poetry Buffet pops up at the Alvar Library in the Bywater. Local poet Gina Ferrara presents noted authors George Guida, Kelly Harris, Nancy Harris, and David Rowe for an unforgettable afternoon of powerful poetry in the Bywater.

& Sunday March 6 from 1-5 pm and the following two weekends the Friends of NOPL are bringing their Book Sale to Norman Mayer Library. Hundreds of books for the whole family will be on sale — adult fiction and nonfiction, children’s and teens’, plus CDs, DVDs, and audiobooks. So tell your friends about our Friends, and we’ll see you there!

& Next Sunday at 3 pm at the Maple Leaf New York poet GEORGE GUIDA reads from his work. The Maple Leaf Poetry Series, founded by beloved poet Everett Maddox and curated by poet Nancy Harris, is the longest running poetry reading series in the South.

& At 7 pm Team Slam New Orleans (Team SNO) hosts The Women of World Poetry Slam Send Off Show featuring ICON at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center.  $5 admission.