The Louisiana Book Festival is this coming Saturday, October 31st, on the grounds of the state capitol in Baton Rouge. One of the highlights of the literary year here in the Pelican State, the festival features scores of panels, discussions, readings, vendors, and exhibitors all throughout the day, and best of all, is free. More information about the Festival is available on their website, including a complete schedule of events.

As one of the visitors to the festival from overseas, the novelist and journalist Nick Holdstock will be visiting New Orleans to give a reading this coming Wednesday at 6pm at Maple Street Book Shop. I’m honored to introduce my good friend (and occasional collaborator), who is currently on tour for his new novel, The Casualties. More information is available through Maple Street itself.

November 14th brings the annual YMCA Corporate Cup 5k in City Park, a race whose proceeds benefit the Adult Education Center at the main branch of the New Orleans Public Library. Long known for their wonderful work promoting adult literacy in New Orleans, the Y is always in desperate need of more resources to serve the reading-deficient communities of this area. If you like to run, walk, or even just sit and read, consider coming out for this event. Registration is open now; more information is available here.

For those in the New Orleans area, next Monday, September 29, the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities will host the inaugural reading by Peter Cooley, the new poet laureate of Louisiana. Reception to begin at 6, reading at 7. Readings of this nature happen only once every few years, so it’s sure to be a wonderful night.

As part of their ongoing series on advocacy, Pelican Bomb has an exploration of the Sylvia Roberts archive at Newcomb College, Tulane University. One of Louisiana’s most celebrated attorneys, Roberts died late last year, after a career spanning the last half of the twentieth century.

Room 220 has a brief review and interview with Cynthia Joyce, the editor of Please Forward: How Blogging Reconnected New Orleans after Katrina, out this summer from UNO Press. Joyce and a number of contributors from the book will be reading from the anthology tomorrow evening at the Press Street headquarters at 3718 St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans. From the organizers:

The event on Tuesday will feature readings from Please Forward contributors such as Allen Boudreaux, Richard Read, Dedra Johnson, Andrea Boll, Mark Moseley, and Mike “T Mayheart” Dardar. The event is free and open to the public, Maple Street Books will be on hand with copies of the anthology, and complimentary libations will be served, though donations are strongly suggested.