Little Free Library is a precious little project designed to “promote literacy, the love of reading, and building a sense of community” by erecting birdhouse-sized “libraries” where people can steal (“borrow”) or dump (“donate”) books. It’s basically just like the real library, except the selection is worse, there are no computers or homeless people, the … You want a little library? You’ve got to earn it.
For many, eighth grade is a time for growth and awkwardness, puberty and confusion. Local writer and educator Janine Jankovitz has stepped up to transform the turmoil of this tender age experienced by young New Orleanians into material to mine for creative writing. Jankovitz—who recently performed at the lascivious-sounding but probably harmless Poetry Brothel last … Writing workshop at the new Keller Library targets eighth graders
By Pia Z. Ehrhardt Dean Paschal grew up in a small town in southwest Georgia called Albany. Upon sensing the twilight of his official childhood in the seventh grade, he began to read every children’s book he could get his hands on while they were still, by society’s regard, age-appropriate. He was an indiscriminate reader, … Beyond the light of the jukebox: An interview with Dean Paschal
Please join us for a free screening of THUNDER BAY, by Anthony Mann (1953) In 1946, ex-Navy engineer Steve Martin comes to a Louisiana town with a dream: to build a safe platform for offshore oil drilling. Having finessed financing from a big oil company, formerly penniless Steve and his partner Johnny are in business…and … The Green Screen – THUNDER BAY
By Nathan C. Martin Michael J. Lee denies any connection between his work and the Southern Gothic tradition, despite characteristics in his stories that might suggest one. This is not only because he’s originally from California—which disqualifies him in the first place—but because he feels too perpetually unmoored to align with any regionalism. “My time … Michael Jeffrey Lee’s Uncomfortable Gothic: An interview
Poet and theorist Craig Dworkin, who edits the fantastic Eclipse website, randomly showed up as a professor at my college during my senior year and taught a class of baffling writing that I barely understood (or didn’t understand!) and that I’ve never quite recovered from, in the best way possible. We discussed pataphysics, read Lyn … The inimitable Christian Bok at the Delta Mouth Lit Fest
By Michael Allen Zell Bill Zavatsky is a New York poet who has had two of his own books published since 1975. Why so few? He’s been busy running SUN press and magazine for fifteen years, translating Surrealist poets, teaching, and playing jazz piano. Zavatsky graciously took time to answer a few questions last week … “You publish too much!” An interview with Bill Zavatsky
Author Jami Attenberg attended the Jonathan Franzen event last night at Tulane, and wrote a blog post based on her notes that’s getting trafficked around the interwebs, particularly because of Franzen’s negative comments about Twitter. From Attenberg’s post: [Franzen] on social media: “It’s a free country. People can do whatever they want within the law, … He has a publicist who probably dreams about him every night
At the Paris Review Daily, Tulane University professor Thomas Beller ruminates on his time in Phnom Pehn from a bathroom in New Orleans. Beller, who’s the author of the essay collection How to Be a Man and the novel The Sleepover Artist, spoke with Room 220 last spring about the closing of Open City, the … Thomas Beller, from New Orleans to Phnom Pehn
