This year A Studio in the Woods is celebrating its 50th anniversary with a special gala: the Bottomland Jubilee. Held at the Audubon Species Survival Center on May 19, the event will feature music, food, and art from some of the region’s finest as we celebrate five decades of creativity and ecology on the Mississippi River. Also in the news from ASITW is the groundbreaking for its new Writer’s Cabin, which will take place later this summer. For more information on the Cabin, see the video below:

Next week I’m thrilled to be celebrating National Poetry Month alongside five excellent poets, reading at the East Bank Regional Library of the Jefferson Parish Library system. The reading starts at 7pm on Tuesday, April 30, featuring Esme Franklin, Benjamin Aleshire, Elizabeth Gross, Brad Richard, and Cassie Pruyn, taking place in the Jefferson and Napoleon Rooms.

The 4th annual New Orleans Poetry Festival is this weekend, April 18-21. One of the single most joyful festivals in the region (no bias here), and certainly the only festival dedicated just to poetry for hundreds of miles, NOPF brings four days of readings, workshops, open mics, exhibitions, and a small press book fair. More information here, here, and here.

…runs next week from March 27-31, featuring Michael Cunningham, Julia Reed, and Val Kilmer. Yes, Val Kilmer. Room 220 at Antenna has a roundup of events here.

Over at A Studio in the Woods, two recent pieces of news: first, applications for 2019-2020 residencies have opened, and will be accepted until April 22, 2019, and second, they’ve revamped their website to make it far easier to learn about that very application process. So: what are you waiting for?