After a race-to-the-finish final week in Edinburgh, culminating in a wonderful farewell evening at the Abbotsford Pub on Rose Street (home watering hole, it’s important to note, of the late poets Hugh MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, and Sorley MacLean), it’s back to New Orleans for, as the Scots would say, the next wee while. The return couldn’t be kinder: I’m honored to be the featured reader at this week’s 1718 Reading Series, sponsored by the Walker Percy Center for Writing and Publishing at Loyola University. With such distinguished writers as Kevin Rabelais and Kate Bernheimer in the series, it’s humbling to be in their company.

I’ll be reading a selection of new and recently-published work, mostly poetry. The evening starts at 7pm on Tuesday night at the Columns Hotel (3811 St Charles), with student readings to follow. More details are available on the Maple Street Bookshop website. Hope to see you there.

As the Guardian observes, this morning marks the beginning of the COP18 talks in Doha. Three years after the failures at Copenhagen, it’s hard to reconcile how much time we’ve lost — but let’s hope that, through whatever mechanisms possible, we see more progress this time around than last (at the very least, more than we saw at Rio in June). It’s a small hope, but worth holding onto.

Christy Lorio — good friend, fellow Oxford American contributor, and current columnist at UptownMessenger.com — writes in her column today about this weekend’s New Orleans Book Fair and Media Expo, taking place all day tomorrow (Saturday) in the CBD. Last year’s, which I was privileged to attend with Forest Publications co-conspirator Magda Boreszya, was more fun than should be allowed. This year, “With over 70 vendors participating from as far as Kansas,” Lorio writes,”the roster is diverse.”

There’s self publishers, small printing houses, outreach groups, and artists, not to mention t-shirt designers and jewelry makers. Leo McGovern ran the Alternative Media Expo from 2003-2010, and was asked to combine forces with the New Orleans Bookfair this year. The merge made sense, given the events had similar goals of helping “put people who are fans of cool things together”.  McGovern promises “the same vibe that the bookfair has always had”, with a casual, comic book convention type of atmosphere.

Oh, to be in two places at once. But for those in Edinburgh, fear not: there’s fiddles!

After a lovely launch at the flagship book shop this weekend, the West Port Book Festival has released its programme for the 2012 festival. Running from 23-26 November, it looks to be a fantastic weekend – with new and established voices alike, there’s something on to suit all tastes. Details, and the full programme, are available here.

I’m delighted to say that after the upheaval from Hurricane Isaac, and a few other tasks besides, I’ve returned to Edinburgh for the next month to finish up work at IASH. For those in the Edinburgh area, the Institute maintains an ongoing bulletin board of events in and around the university, a list which rarely receives the patronage it deserves — there is always, always something interesting to be found.

As WordPress seems to be acting up, the list is available here:

http://www.iash.ed.ac.uk/bullbrd.html