Crescent City Books hosts October authors, celebrates 20 years

The Black Widow Salon continues its docket of literary events next month with presentations by Mark Yakich from 7 – 9 p.m. on Oct. 1 and Carolyn Hembree from 2 – 4 p.m. on  Oct. 6. Both events will take place at Crescent City Books (230 Chartres St.) and the latter will also celebrate the store’s 20th anniversary with discounts and giveaways.

Mark Yakich is an acclaimed poet, fiction writer, essayist, Loyola professor, and the new editor of the New Orleans Review. His collection of poems Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross was selected for the 2004 Penguin National Poetry Series, and he has published several other works, including the novel A Meaning for Wife and the nonfiction book Checking In/Checking Out, which he wrote with Christopher Schaberg. Room 220 hosted Yakich for a reading last year for the launch of A Meaning For Wife. You can read an interview with him about that book by Taylor Murrow and an interview with him and Schaberg about Checking In/Checking Out by Nathan C. Martin at Room 220.

Carolyn Hembree is a beloved assistant professor at the University of New Orleans and the author of the recently released collection of poems Skinny, whose launch Room 220 hosted in September at Lipstick Lingerie and Boutique. Read an essay on Hembree and Skinny by Taylor Murrow at Room 220 and an interview with her about the book by Room 220 contributor Erik Vande Stouwe at NolaVie.

Crescent City Books is a French Quarter used bookstore in the classic sense, replete with tall stacks of obscure volumes, antique maps, dust, and a cat. Under the stewardship of author Michael Zell, the store’s manager, its collection has also been fleshed out by new titles by some of today’s best publishers, including Dalkey Archive, New Directions, and City Lights Books. Zell’s Black Widow Salon hosts emerging and accomplished authors from New Orleans and beyond.