Welcome

PIRATE’S ALLEY FAULKNER SOCIETY
The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society is a nationally recognized non-profit arts organization with programming  designed to honor and assist writers, provide high quality literary entertainment for general public readers, and combat the growing national disgrace of illiteracy. The Faulkner Society was created in 1990 with the overall goal of working to enhance the national image of New Orleans as a cultural and intellectual destination. In addition to provocative and educational events for the general public, mission specifics include providing realistic assistance to developing writers of all ages, creating literacy initiatives, and continuing education  in literature and writing. Membership is open to all regardless of ethnic origin, race, sex, political or religious persuasion. Many of our programs are offered free or at discounted rates to students and the general reading public. The Society, which offers special programming benefits for members and sponsors, is a 501 (c) (3) literary and educational institution. Tax deductible donations now are being accepted and managed for us by The Greater New Orleans Foundation. CLICK HERE for Membership and Donations Information. Because much of our programming is free, the Society solicits memberships and donations to support continuation of free programming. 

PROGRAMS FOR READERS AND WRITERS
The Faulkner – Wisdom Competition
The William Faulkner – William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition has been one of the Society’s most successful projects. Created in 1992, today the competition has been offering nine categories of creative writing with cash prizes for the winners ranging from $1,000 to $7,500. Our competition is for previously unpublished work and is intended to showcase new literary talent and boost the chances of publication. The competition opens on December 1 and winners are presented during Faulkner for All! the following September. The Short Lists for all categories have been selected and the manuscripts have been forwarded to final round judges.
Winners will be announced by September 1 and they will be our invited guests for Faulkner for All. To review selections for the 2024-2025 competition, Click Here!

The Competition for 2025-2026 will open December !
All entering should review the guidelines prior to submitting material. Please note that the category designations will be changing The new categories will be:
Novels; Collections: Fiction and Non-fiction; Narrative Non-Fiction Books;  Short Fiction: Novellas and Stories; Books-in-Progress; Essays; Poetry Collections; Individual Poems; and
Short Story by a High School Student.
All new entries must be in our hands not later than midnight, June 15, 2026. For guidelines, CLICK HERE. All 2026 winners will be our invited guests for all events of the Faulkner for All weekend, September 24 – 28, 2026.
For 2024-2025 Selections,Click Here!
For 2023-2024 Winners, Click Here!
For 2021-2022 Winners, Click here!
For 2020-2021 Winners, Click Here!

Competition Good News:
Michael J. Warner grew up in New Orleans, where he learned to tell a good story and cook bread pudding perfectly. And he is one of our own. He was a 2019 finalist for his non-fiction book Charles Whitfield Richards: The Artist and His Circle. We just learned that the book will be published this month by University of Louisiana Press. Publication of his book will be celebrated with a book signing party at the Garden District Book Shop on September 10th at 6 p. m.  So order your books now and plan to get them personalized at the event.  For more on Michael and his book, Click Here!
More Good Competition News:
Concurrently we have just received word that Tom Andes, who was selected by Maurice Ruffin to receive the Society’s 2019 Gold Medal for Best Novel in Progress for Wait Until You Hear From Me, will celebrate publication of it by Crescent City Books on September 1.  Tom Andes’ stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories 2012, Best American Mystery and Suspense Stories 2025, and The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year 2025. A long-time New Orleans resident, he now lives in Albuquerque, NM where he is a working musician. For more on Tom, Click here!

Faulkner for All!
Join Us in New Orleans September 25 – 28, 2025
The Faulkner Society was founded in memory of Nobel Laureate William Faulkner, who arrived in New Orleans in 1925 after suffering ridicule as “Count No-Count” in his native Oxford, MS. He took to New Orleans like the proverbial duck to water, calling it “the very best place to live,” including especially his apartment at 624 Pirate’s Alley. New Orleans embraced and nurtured and inspired him, enabling his progression from a less than famous poet to America’s best known novelist. He wrote his first novel Soldiers’ Pay, while living on  Pirate’s Alley. This success set him firmly on the path to the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was welcomed by the Bohemian literary elite of New Orleans, including writers who founded and published the old Double Dealer literary journal, first publisher of Faulkner’s work and that of other important writers. We are striving to provide the same nurturing environment for students and developing writers, those who live in New Orleans and those who arrive seeking, like Faulkner, the inspiration to make their mark. We are assembling appreciative audiences for both established artists and those who are “works in progress.” Faulkner for All! is our most complicated and expensive undertaking, as it embraces multiple disciplines and target audiences and 20 to 30 presenters annually. We attempt to create in a four-day period the kind of nurturing, entertaining, and enlightening environment which inspired  writers and their fans who lived during the Bohemian heyday of New Orleans.
Happy Birthday, Mr. Faulkner!
The Society always raises a cup to Mr. Faulkner on his birthday. This year,  the traditional tip of the hat falls on a Thursday, opening day of the festival. So, it will become our patrons party honoring out of town festival guests and presenters at the residence of Society
Co-Chairman Quinn Peeper and Board Member Michael Harold.Special guest of honor for the even will be Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler.  Butler’s Pulitzer book, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, is a collection of short stories about the Vietnam refugees, who settled in New Orleans when Saigon fell and the Vietnam War ended 50 years ago. During the festival,  Butler will look back at Vietnam with steadfast anti-war activist Randy Fertel, Vietnamese author and NPR commentator Andrew Lam  , best-selling author Thomas Mallon, who taught a Literature of War seminar in Vietnam recently.  This event is by invitation with advance reservations.
At 11 a. m. on the 25th, the Society will open the 2025 festival with its traditional New Orleans, Mon Amour discussion celebrating new work about our City. This year’s celebrants of the Big Easy will be Dalt Wonk, playwright, poet, fabulist, and journalist, and his wife, internationally noted art photographer Josephine Sacabo, whose new book is: New Orleans: 1970 – 2020: A Portrait of The City, a creation based on their years of capturing the city in print and photography. 2025 is the 100th anniversary of Faulkner’s pivotal year in New Orleans and his completion of his first novel. Salutes to Mr. Faulkner in this anniversary year will be experts in the work and life of William Faulkner and his New Orleans mentors and friends: John Shelton Reed, Penny Morrill, Robin Sinclair, and Lisa Hickman.

2025 Theme, Faulkner for All:
Embracing the Marginalized In Literature & Life
Among this year’s Headliners are  2023 National Book Award winner Justin Torres; UK’s glamorous art curator, historian, and author, the Countess of Derby;  journalist and professor of journalism  Claire Hoffman, author the new blockbuster book, Sister, Sinner; and poet Julie Kane, winner of the 26th annual Louisiana Writer’s Award. The Torres book, Blackouts, is characterized by passages of inspired literary beauty and its clear representation of the message of the dangers of marginalization. In this case the narrative is about  the marginalization not only of gays as a group, but the erasure of their true history,  erasure of their artistic products or redaction, blackouts—without author agreement—of passages that do not please self-anointed, ill-educated censors and  book banners. His appearances include a free, open to the pubic address co-sponsored by Loyola University on the Loyola Campus, September 26;  also on the 26th, a conversation with Justin Torres and prize-winning Tulane Writer-in-Residence, Yuri Herrera at Beauregard – Keyes House; and an advice session for writers on September 27th.

The latest offering from Lady Derby, Caroline Stanley, is: The American Journal of Edward Geoffrey Stanley, 14^th Earl of Derby. It is an engaging example of how to use one’s heritage to illuminate history for others. Lady Derby will be special guest of honor at a cocktail-buffet reception and presentation of her new book. For more on this author and her book, Click Here!
(Books must be reserved and paid in advance from Garden District Books.)

The author party will be hosted by world famous restaurateurs Ti Martin and Lally Brennan, owners of Commander’s Palace, a major  2025 festival sponsor. Commander’s highly lauded Chef Meg will be preparing special treats for the event. 
Claire Hoffmann launched her career as a journalist writing features for the New York Times. Her childhood experiences, living with her divorced mother in a Transcendental  Meditation Movement community, have given her special insight for her new book, which  tells the stranger-than-fiction story of Aimee Semple McPherson, whose mysterious life made headlines in the 1920s and paved the way for televangelism. Sister, Sinner traces the spectacular life and career of this preacher who started a Christian movement that has spread across the globe and arguably shapes United States politics today.
For more on Claire and Sister, Sinner: Click Here!

Poet Julie Kane, named 2025 Louisiana Writer of the Year by the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana, will present her new collection, Naked Ladies and read from Faulkner’s book of poetry, The Marble Faun, on the final day of Faulkner for All 2025, Sunday, September 28. For more on this outstanding writer and educator, author of multiple collections of poetry, as well as other works, Click Here!
New Orleans Television celebrity Margaret Orr and artist, Illustrator, and print maker, Matt Rinard have joined hands with publisher Susan Schadt to produce a wonderful new book for children about the most famous of 2025 New Orleans heroes, the canine escape artist SCRIM, who gained national fame for his courage and determination to find home. They will be joined by Scrim’s savior, Michelle Cheramie, owner of Zeus’s rescues for our Special Interest books event.. 

And they will be joined by a whole slew of other exceptional literary personalities, including notable literary agents, editors, and marketing professionals who are coming to critique new work and present advice sessions for writers.

For a complete Schedule of 2025 Faulkner for All! Events and Presenters, Click Here!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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