Good friends Colony Collapse Press are hosting a novella contest, for works between 15- and 50,000 words. The deadline for submissions is July 31st; more details are available on their website here.

This Thursday night, the Happy Hour Salon at Press Street features Nathaniel Rich, Rachel Kushman, and Zachary Lazar each reading from their books. More details are available at Room 220; the reading starts around 6.

For those in the New Orleans area, A Studio in the Woods is hosting its annual FORESTival this coming Saturday, from 11am-5pm. Always a spectacular day down in the forest, the festival features food, music, art, and photography from some of New Orleans’ finest, and if the rumors are true, a giant puppet second-line courtesy of the Black Forest Fancies Laboratory.

Don’t miss it — no matter how big or little a kid you are.

As one of the last events of National Poetry Month, I’m honored to be leading a celebration of poetry tonight at the Norman Mayer (Gentilly) Branch of the New Orleans Public Library. The Dead Poets Slam starts at 5.30pm, featuring area high school students bringing their favorite dead poets — well, at least their poems — into the poetry nook on the second floor. Don’t be a stranger! Come celebrate the end of a fantastic month with us.

Also concluding the month is the series of NPM-related posts at Bayou Magazine, over at UNO. Their contributions this month are well worth trolling back through — it ain’t every day that Aaron Neville writes a new poem just for the occasion, is it?

Pelican Bomb has a brief essay on Isabelle Hayeur’s series of photographs, Underworlds. Hayeur was the most recent resident at A Studio in the Woods, which — for those in the New Orleans area — is hosting their annual FORESTival next weekend, May 11th.