Maple Street’s Book Club led by Brad Richard, Octavia Books hosts Ken Foster, and Louisiana Cultural Vistas launch

This Thursday, September 8, a trio of events across the city provide enthusiasts with different literary offerings:

Brad Richard will lead a discussion of Tonya Foster’s A Swarm of Bees in High Court at Maple Street Books (7529 Maple Street). The event will begin at 6 p.m., and refreshments will be served. No sign-up is needed to attend the event. Harryette Mullen said the following of A Swarm of Bees in High Court: This book “is, among other things, Tonya Foster’s ‘attempt to create biography of a place,’ specifically Harlem in the 21st century, where certain dreams are indefinitely deferred. From bedroom intimacies behind closed blinds to public displays of affection and disaffection, Foster’s poetry contemplates unspoken bonds of culture, geography, and race that bring couples and communities together, along with the terrible strains that can tear them apart.”

Ken Foster will read from the new edition of The Dogs Who Found Me at Octavia Books (513 Octavia Street) at 6 p.m. Of The Dogs Who Found Me, Amy Hempel said: “Generosity and gratitude power this compelling account of the reciprocal nature of rescue. Ken Foster illuminates a profound lesson about saving a life: Doing it makes you able to do it.”

Louisiana Cultural Vistas will host a publication party for its latest issue. The event will take place at Frank Relle Photography (910 Royal Street) at 6 p.m. The “Confluences” issue will feature C.E. Richard’s exploration of boat making and its implications for cognitive science, Michael Patrick Welch’s torture fishing education on Lake Ponchartrain, a visit to the set of Plaquemines, a short film funded by the #CreateLouisiana partnership, as well as selections from photographer Frank Relle’s “Until the Water” collection.

Brad Richard is founder and chairman of Lusher’s Creative Writing Department and co-director of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards/Southeast Louisiana Writing Region. He has published three collections of poetry and was the winner of the 2010 Washington Prize. His work has been featured in numerous prestigious anthologies and journals. Richard has received many grants and awards, including the Century Swept Brutal/Black Ocean Award in Excellence; a Louisiana Division of the Arts Artist Fellowship in Literature; the Poets & Writers, Inc., Writers Exchange Award in Poetry; and a Surdna Foundation Artist Teacher Fellowship. Richard is also a co-founder of the New Writers Literary Festival (LitFest) and The Waves Reading Series.

Ken Foster is the author of the bestselling memoir, The Dogs Who Found Me, and a collection of stories, The Kind I’m Likely To Get, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.  He is also the editor of two anthologies: The KGB Bar Reader and Dog Culture. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Bark, The Believer, Urban Dog, Salon, Fence, Flaunt, and other publications, and he has appeared as a guest on National Public Radio’s “Fresh Air” program with Terry Gross, WGBH’s “Morning Stories.” He is most recently the author of Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found.