2024 Schedule of Events, Faulkner for All

Friday, September 27th
Diversity As Inspiration for Life & Literature
Facts and truth really don’t have much to do with each other.
—William Faulkner
9:00 to 10:30 a. m. – Ground Floor Meeting Room, Hotel Provincial
Manuscript Critiques
11:00 a. m. – The Beauregard – Keyes House, 1110 Chartres Street, Main floor Registration, book sales, and casual lunch, catered by Pigeon.
12:30 p. m. – B-K House, Main Floor
Welcome remarks: Rosemary James, Co-Founder, Faulkner Society
12:45 p.m. – B-K House, Main floor.
If You Want to Find the Truth in these Troubling Times, Read Fiction
Presented by bestselling author Thomas Mallon, who will discuss the diversity in information bombarding all of us today, making it difficult to assess the value of all of the stories flowing across our TV screens and our internet sources and in the print media. Mallon, who has written a political trilogy of novels spanning the time from Watergate to the George W. Bush years, has this to say about the ways in which fiction can sometimes surpass biography and regular history in offering an understanding of politicians’ behavior and psychology.  “Candidates today may be on constant, moment-by-moment display, but the funhouse mirrors of social media have left them less real and less revealed than they ever were. With its centuries’ worth of imaginative tools—its construction of intimate, competing points of view; its conveyance of private thoughts that lie behind public words—fiction may, at this dangerous political moment, have more to offer democracy than any other medium or art form.”
ALIHOT Award
Thomas Mallon, who is Special Guest of Honor at the Mint Julep patron’s party on  September 25th  celebrating Faulkner birthday, and who is teaching a Master Class for creative writing students at Tulane on the 26th, will be saluted at the Society’s Black Tie Annual meeting with the award to him of the Society’s gold medal ALIHOT (A Legend in His/Her Own Time) Sunday evening at the historic Ursuline Convent and Chapel, 1113 Chartres Street. This award recognizes Tom Mallon for his achievement of excellence fiction, narrative non-fiction, criticism, and journalism.

2:00 p. m. – B-K House, Main floor
Diversity of Characters in the Work of William Faulkner
Everyone in the South has no time for reading because they are all too busy writing
—William Faulkner
Presented by Lawrence William Coates. Lawrence, a Faulkner fan and scholar, is the author of five books of fiction, most recently a novella, Camp Olvido. His manuscript Boom was awarded the Faulkner Society’s 2020-2021 Gold Medal for Best Novella. And he judged the Novella category this year. His work has been recognized with the Western States Book Award in Fiction, the Donald Barthelme Prize in Short Prose, the Miami University Press Novella Prize, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction. He currently teaches Creative Writing at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, which has campuses situated on homelands of the Wyandot, Kickapoo, Miami, Potawatomi, Odawa, and multiple other Indigenous nations, present and past.

3:00 to 4:00 p.m –  Intermission
Manuscript Critiques 
(Out of town guests may take this opportunity to get settled at the Hotel Provincial)

The Deliciously Delectable Side of Diversity
There is a lot of nourishment in and acre of corn.
—William Faulkner
4:15 p. m. – Beauregard – Keyes House, 1110 Chartres Street, Main Floor
New Orleans is like Napoleon’s Army. It Moves on its stomach. And the diverse  food is always Yummy in the Tummy.
Presented by Elizabeth “Liz” Williams, Chef Dwynesha “Dee” Lavigne, and Marcelle Bienvenu, three of the city’s most important food ambassadors to the outside world, all with loyal private followings as well. While there are many ethnic influences on the unique cuisine of New Orleans, we selected the three most important cultures whose cooks have had their hands on the pot: Afro-Caribbean, Sicilian, and Acadian. If you stay here long enough and eat at enough different tables, you will quickly learn that even an Israeli or Irish, Ethiopian or Mexican, German or Indian or you name it chef will have embedded in his or her creations a taste of New Orleans.

The program will be introduced and moderated by Liz Williams, food writer for magazines and food consultant to international food clients, and founder of the National Food and Beverage Foundation and the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. Liz also will discuss the impact of the 19^th century Sicilian immigration, as she was born into a family of Sicilian heritage and grew up eating dishes derived from two strong food traditions. Her book Nana’s Creole Italian Table was inspired by her Sicilian heritage. Currently she is writing a biography of Michelle Bienvenu, which was shortlisted in the Faulkner Society’s Book-in-Progress competition this year. As a lawyer, she became fascinated by the law’s intersections  with the food and co-authored The Encyclopeida of Food and Law. Intrigued by such historical food threads as how the lure of nutmeg and peppercorns ignited world exploration amd amazed that the South had no museum dedicated to its unique culinary traditions, she set about curing that deficiency. The Southern Food and Beverage Museum opened its doors in June, 2008, in the Riverwalk and moved to its permanent location in Central City in 2014.. For more on this culinary mover and shaker and her amazing career, visit: https://www.southernfood.org/sofab

Chef Dee Lavigne will be representing the Afro-American culture as founder of Deelightful Roux School of Cooking and contributor to the Smithsonian Institute and WWL-TV cooking shows. By 2017, with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America and15 years of experience running pastry departments around the country for Whole Foods Markets—Lavigne, a native of the Ninth Ward—launched Deelightful Cupcakes and was well established when COVID struck. She survived the blow to her business with contributions to programs of the Smithsonian and other media connections but COVID made her realize she needed to pivot to survive. Following in the tradition of her heroine, the celebrated Chef Lena Richard, “America’s Unknown Celebrity Chef”, she decided to open a cooking school and she approached the Southern Food & Beverage Museum to create the school on site in the museum. They liked the idea and the Deelightful Roux School of Cooking was born, giving her a permanent home for showcasing the city’s culinary traditions. This successful partnership with the museum continues today For more information, email: https://www.chefdeelavigne.com/contact/

2024 ALIHOT Award
Marcelle Bienvenu, the Faulkner Society’s 2024’s Special Guest of Honor for Faulkner for All, is known fondly across the United States and throughout Louisiana as the “Queen of Acadian Cuisine.” Ms. Bienvenu has a stunning re-imagined and re-designed version of her classic about the Acadian culture and its marvelous food. The new book with foreword by Emeril Lagasse, published by Susan Schadt Press, is being introduced to the public at this event. The title is, of course: Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make a Roux? She will be saluted at the Society’s 34^th black tie annual meeting as recipient of an ALIHOT (A Legend in His/Her Own Time) for her contributions to the culture and cuisine of Louisiana.

 Queen of Acadian Cuisine:
Marcelle Bienvenu is a cookbook author and food writer who has been preparing Cajun and Creole dishes since the 1960s. She has written on Creole/Cajun Cooking for The Times Picayune, Time-Life Books, and has been featured in Garden & Gun, Food & Wine, Saveur, Southern Living, Redbook, The New York Times, Louisiana Life, and Acadiana Profile. Bienvenu authored the original: Who’s Your Mama, Are You Catholic, and Can You Make A Roux? Then, Who’s Your Mama…(The Sequel), and Cajun Cooking for Beginners. She  co-edited Cooking Up A Storm: Recipes Lost and Found (Times Picayune, 2008) which was nominated for a James Beard Award in 2009. Working with Emeril Lagasse for 15 years, she co-authored several cookbooks with him including Louisiana Real & Rustic, Emeril’s Creole Christmas, Emeril’s TV Dinners, and Every Day’s A Party. She owned and operated a restaurant Chez Marcelle, near Lafayette, Louisiana, and has worked for several restaurants, including Commander’s Palace and K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans. A graduate of USL (now University of Lafayette in Louisiana). She was an instructor at the Chef John Folse Culinary Institute at Nicholls State University for 11 years and lives on Bayou Têche in St. Martinville. Louisiana, with her
husband, Rock Lasserre.
After the introduction by her biographer, Liz Williams, Ms. Bienvenu will be presenting a slide show on her Acadiana.

6:15 p. m. – B-K House, Main Floor
2024 Welcome Party
Catered by Jean Pierre Pigeon and his staff led by Lea Freeman Food will represent food representing three cultures: Afro-Caribbean, Sicilian, and Acadian, with some items prepared from Marcelle’s recipes.

8:00 p.m. – B-K House Garden.
Festival guests are invited to join the audience of the Beauregard House’s opening concert of its garden concert series for
the second set performed by Jon Cleary. Or, you may opt for manuscript criitiques or time on the town.

Saturday, September  28th
Morning Program
Writing a first draft is like trying to build a house In a strong wind.
—William Faulkner
8:30 a. m – Hotel Provincial, Ground floor Meeting Room
Continental Breakfast for Registered Festival Guests
9:00 a. m. – Provincial Meeting Room
Keynote for Writers: Don’t be Afraid of Variety
Ellis Anderson, Publisher of the French Quarter Journal, will introduce, New York agent Jeff Kleinman, a founding partner in Folio Literary Management. Jeff will discuss means by which writers can diversify their narratives through character development, changing the scenery, unexpected plots with varied twists and turns. Jeff, who has assisted the Faulkner Society as Chairman of Resources for Writers for 20 years, loves unique voices, strong characters, unusual premises, and books that offer up some new perspective on something he thought he already knew something about or never even dreamed existed. He represents bestselling authors Dolly Parton, Peter Frampton, Garth Stein, Eowyn Ivey, Jacqueline Mitchard, Elizabeth Letts, Karen Dionne, and Charles Shields; celebrities’ estates, like Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn. His novel clients many novels, include many first novels like Lara Prescott’s
The Secrets We Kept, Brendan Slocumb’s The Violin Conspiracy, Diane Richards’ Ella, Benjamin Ludwig’s Ginny Moon, and Val Emmich’s The Reminders. At the end of his opening remarks, Jeff will introduce the literary professionals joining him as critiquing agents for 2024 and invite them to join him in the discussion. They are: Justin Brouckaert, Deborah Grosvernor, Laura Gross, Lisa Leshne, Kiele Raymond, and Celina “Cindy” Spiegel.

Critiquing Agents & Editors
There are some things for which three words are three too many…
—William Faulkner

Justin Brouckaert is a literary agent with Aevitas Creative Management. His list includes journalists, historians, novelists, memoirists, humorists, and literary storytellers of all stripes, and he has represented multiple New York Times bestsellers, including Amber Share’s Subpar Parks, Julian Sancton’s Madhouse at the End of the Earth, and Marisa Franco’s Platonic, in addition to such acclaimed and award-winning titles as R.S. Deeren’s Enough to Lose, Lauren Aguirre’s The Memory Thief, Adam Lazarus’s The Wingmen, and Jesselyn Cook’s The Quiet Damage. In both nonfiction and fiction, he’s searching for unique voices and transportive storytelling in projects that shine a light on marginalized, underserved, or overlooked places, communities, and people. A member of the American Association of Literary Agents, he lives with his wife and daughter in Metro Detroit. For more information on Justin and Aevitas: calendly.com/justinbrouckaert

Deborah Grosvenor was the first literary agent to participate in critique sessions for the Faulkner Society some 20 years ago. Her 25-year career has included experience as both agent and editor. She has edited or represented several hundred nonfiction books. As an editor, she acquired Tom Clancy’s first novel, The Hunt for Red October. Her distinguished client list includes prominent writers, New York Times bestselling authors, prize-winning historians and journalists, including: Peter Cozzens, Harrison Scott Key, Daniel de Visé, Jim McCloskey, Stephen Coonts, Curtis Wilkie, Gayden Metcalfe, Jay Rubenstein, Tore Olsson, Monica Black, Trita Parsi, Charlie Engle, Meg Noonan, Jonathan Green, Aaron David Miller, Eleanor Clift, Thomas Oliphant, Scott Wallace, Nina Burleigh, Willard Randall, Mark Geragos, and Elizabeth Pryor. Deborah likes narrative nonfiction about history, biography, current and foreign affairs, memoir, food, the South, humor, Italy, the environment,  travel. For fiction, she simply is interested in great storytelling, especially in  historical context.

Laura Gross, a native of London, UK, worked as a young adult, for a prominent literary agent and three Members of Parliament, experiences which gave her fascinating windows on the rough and ready inner workings of British government. She moved to the U.S. East Coast to earn her B. A. degree in Comparative Literature from Brown University and began working in New York publishing as assistant at two leading New York literary agencies, became the youngest editor at one of New York’s oldest publishing houses. A literary professional for decades, she is now has her own firm, Laura Gross Literary Agency. Laura feels extremely lucky to love her work.. “I am fortunate, too, to represent a broad range of fiction and non-fiction writers. These days, I am particularly interested in politics, current affairs, and espionage from a broad range of voices and perspectives.” Authors she represents include Andrea Buchanan, Martha Riva Palacio Obón, Jodi Picoult, Keletso Mopai, Norman Solomon, Shad Al Rawi, Mark Pryor. Currently, she lives and works near Boston, MA.

 Lisa Leshne is a literary agent and has been in the publishing business for over 30 years. Originally from Champaign, IL, she founded The Prague Post newspaper in Czechoslovakia in 1991, serving as Publisher for over a decade. After receiving an MBA from Harvard, she worked in business for Dow Jones in NYC and The Wall Street Journal in Europe and Asia. She started as an agent at LJK Literary in 2008 and founded The Leshne Agency in 2011 as a full-service literary agency working with all the major publishers. Lisa’s clients include a diverse list of #1 New York Times bestselling, Pulitzer, and Polk award-winning, and debut authors across many genres. Authors include Stacey Abrams, Julissa Arce, Dean Calbreath, Deborah Copaken, Turney Duff, Jesse Itzler, Ivan Klima, A.J. Mendez,  Dr. Roshini Raj, Christie Pearce Rampone, and Tommy Siegel. She is most passionate about memoir and narrative non-fiction that elevate social justice topics and women’s issues, and has a deep interest in sports, business, political, health and pop-culture topics. She is always seeking exceptional literary and commercial fiction and loves working with writers to develop their ideas into meaningful books.

 Kiele Raymond is a Senior Agent at Thompson Literary Agency. Her list includes critically acclaimed and award winning writers such as Lee Matalone, Ari Braverman, Peace Adzo Medie, Nichole Perkins, Candice Wuehle, Janice Obuchowski, and Katie Barnes. Kiele received her B.A. in Anthropology and English Literature from Johns Hopkins University and her M.A. in the Humanities from the University of Chicago before launching her publishing career as an editor at Simon & Schuster. Her studies in modernism, sociolinguistics, and affect theory continue to influence her reading tastes and she treats each project with great editorial care. Kiele is actively seeking bold new voices in literary fiction and narrative non-fiction.

Celina “Cindy Spiegel was a founding editor of Riverhead Books and later became Co-Publisher of Riverhead with Julie Grau, with whom she went on to co-found Spiegel & Grau, first at Random House and now as an independent publisher. She has launched the literary careers of writers including Alex Garland, Khaled Hosseini, Chang-rae Lee, James McBride, Philipp Meyer, Kathleen Norris, ZZ Packer, Catherine Raven, Shelley Read, Domenica Ruta, Danzy Senna, Gary Shteyngart, and Bryan Stevenson, and has also edited bestselling books by Harold Bloom, Sara Gruen, Yuval Noah Harari, Dan Pink, Steven Rinella, Anne Lamott, and Yann Martel, among many others. She sits on the board of Archangel Ancient Tree Archive and on the advisory board of Columbia Global Reports. She is co-editor of the anthology Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible.

Diversity as Inspiration for Literature & Life
A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the
privilege of kicking you once.
—William Faulkner
10:30 a. m. – Beauregard – Keyes House, 1110 Chartres Street, Main Floor  
Diversity is Going to the Dogs…and, Yes, you Cat Ladies, other characters of the animal kingdom such as mules and including one especially charming fox.
Rosemary James, Co-Founder, of the Faulkner Society and proud parent to a pure bred standard poodle, Mardi Gras Mambo, will lead the discussion with:
—Olivia Grey Pritchard, a former United Nations photographer working in hot spots of the world whose new coffee table book, Mutts: A Celebration of Mystery Mixed Breeds, showcases her portraits of more than 100 dogs, all rescued.
—Bill Lavender, New Orleans poet, novelist and publisher, who edited Dogs In My Life: The Photographs of John Tibule Mendes. (See Bill’s complete bio and photo on  the poetry pages.)
—Catherine Raven, whose book, Fox and I, An Uncommon Relationship, won the Society’s gold medal for Best Non-Fiction Book in 2019. At Faulkner for All, her manuscript was critiqued by Cindy Speigel, who signed Cathy on the spot, then quickly sold the book. Upon release, it made the New York Times Bestseller List for Non-Fiction.
—Cindy Spiegel. the legendary New Yorkas editor, now hwho now has her own stand alone publish house, Spiegel & Grau, and continues tis and is critiquing at Faulkner for All again this year.  (See Cindy’s photo and complete bio at Critiquing Agents.)

 Olivia Grey Pritchard says the title Mutts isn’t an insult. “I’m biased. I grew up with them. It’s a term that makes me feel connected to them, gives them some street creds. They’re special because they are a mystery mix. She also claims that especially for mutts that have been rescued, “there’s a level of gratitude that I haven’t seen with purebreds.” After leaving her UN assignments behind in 2012, Olivia moved to New Orleans and opened: Olivia Grey Pritchard Photography Studio. She is much in demand for her portraits of children. Her volunteer efforts are directed at getting unjustly jailed men and women free again.
Catherine Raven, currently working on a novel, is a former national park ranger at Glacier, Mount Rainier, North Cascades, Voyageurs, and Yellowstone national parks. She earned a PhD in biology from Montana State University, holds degrees in zoology and botany from the University of Montana, and is a member of American Mensa and Sigma Xi. Her natural history essays have appeared in American Scientist, Journal of American Mensa, Montana Magazine, Narrative Magazine, and National Geographic Traveler.

11:45 a. m. – B-K House, Main Floor
My, my. A body does get around.
—William Faulkner
Turning diverse Addictions and Afflictions into Special Interest Literary Art.
Led by Rosemary James and featuring Susan Schadt, a boutique publisher of special interest books, with:
—Marcelle Bienvenu, nationally noted food journalist and author of books about her love
of good food: cooking it, eating it, and then writing about it.
—Randy Denman, who is tied this year for the gold medal for non-fiction book with Slow Ride, which is about his determination to rehabilitate a decrepit vehicle that he loves and drive it to the West Coast on the Lincoln Highway. Randy loves road trips and motor vehicles. He previously won the gold medal for best non-fiction book with Off the Grid: A Drive from Louisiana to the Panama Canal in an Electric Car. It was a Tesla, incidentally. He has published six books in his writing career, both fiction and non-fiction, with New York Publishing houses. His books have been awarded the Western Writers of America Spur Award, been a finalist for the Independent Book Publishers Association’s Ben Franklin Award, and he is a previous Faulkner-Wisdom Gold Medal winner.  A one-time resident of the New Orleans area, he is a lifelong resident of Louisiana. When not writing, he is a practicing civil engineer, and also a member of the New Orleans Mardi Gras Krewe of Endymion.
—Andy Plattner, previous winner of the Society’s gold medal for his Novella Terminal and this year’s winner of the gold medal for his short story Slot Machine, loves writing about gaming, sometimes its about horse-racing and others about the one-armed bandits that suck people in to casinos. He has published four books of literary fiction. His latest collection, Dixie Luck, includes Terminal, the gold medal-winning novella at the 2016 Faulkner-Wisdom Competition. Dixie Luck earned a silver medal for Literary Fiction at the 2019 Independent Publishers Book Awards. Plattner’s other works include Offerings from a Rust Belt Jockey (winner, Dzanc Books’ Mid-Career Novel Award), A Marriage of Convenience (finalist, Townsend Prize) and Winter Money (winner, Flannery O’Connor Award).
They will discuss the realm of special interest literature and what makes it both special and interesting.
Susan M. Schadt served as CEO of ArtsMemphis, a nationally recognized united arts fund from 2002-2015. Achievements include increasing arts support throughout the community and strategic funding of arts outreach. Under her leadership, the non-profit launched and completed the Memphis for the Arts Endowment Campaign raising $27.2 million. In 2005, she led ArtsMemphis in partnership with Ducks Unlimited to creayr e an initiative generating over $6 million to support the arts and wildlife conservation. She founded Wild Abundance Publishing and was the publisher and executive editor of three collectible volumes celebrating the sporting life to support the non-profits: First Shooting Light (2008), Wild Abundance (2010), and A Million Wings (2012). Book publishing quickly became Schadt’s addiction. She resigned from ArtsMemphis and launched her artisan imprint, Susan Schadt Press, which has published 30 books and has five releases for 2024. She lives New Orleans with her husband, Chuck. For details: susanschadtpress.com.

1:00 p. m. – Adjourn
Saturday, September 28th
Afternoon Program
1:15 p. m – Casual lunch, Ground floor meeting room, Hotel Provincial
Art as an Instrument and Catalyst to Achieve Justice.
Presented by Lynn Ditchfield, Ph.D., who has taught in urban and rural schools in the U.S. and abroad, pre-school to university. She is creator, writer, and editor of Borders to Bridges: Arts-Based Curriculum for Social Justice and has co-coordinated pilot programs globally. Recent work includes Arts-Based Creativity Approach to Transformative Learning: Awakening Critical Consciousness; articles in Ms. Magazine online: Education is Under Attack, An Incantation for Social Justice; Radical Teacher and Borders to Bridges: Awakening Critical Consciousness. She consulted and translated for the film Waiting to Continue; and is the author of essays including Nightmares and Dreams: Immigrant Voices from Inside Detention and a new book coming soon: Visionary Voices for Social Justice Education. Lynn works as a writer, workshop facilitator, and adjunct professor of education.

2:30 – Hotel Provincial Meeting Room, Ground Floor
Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.
—William Faulkner

Mentoring the poets.
Poet, fiction writer, and publisher Bill Lavender, who annually publishes the Faulkner- Wisdom Competition’s winning collection of poetry will, present a round table with poets attending Faulkner for All, discussing with them and answering there questions about he ins-and-outs of getting poetry published in today’s tough  publishing market. Following this discussion with Patrick Reardon, winner of the 2024 gold medal for best poetry collection for Every Marred Thing: A Time in America;
Gail Waldstein, one of four authors of the collection runner-up, The Four Faces of Eve; Margaret Guilbert, whose collection Dream Ceremony, Alabama Porch, was on the short list; and Janet Ford, winner of the gold medal for the best Individual Poem for My Mother Stands on Her Feet for the Last Time.
Jessica Kinneson, who judged the 2024 Poetry Collection category, and Rodger Kamenetz, who judged the Individual Poem category, are invited to join
this session as well.

Following the discussion, Bill will see these poets individually for manuscript critiques.

Concurrent Programming

2:30 p. m. — Hotel Provincial, Beauregard – Keyes House, Main Floor
Any live man is better than any dead man but no live or dead man z
is very much better than any other live or dead man.
—William Faulkner
Telling the Tales of the Marginalized
Led by Literary Agent Justin Brouckeart, the discussion will explore the ways in which fiction,
non-fiction and poetry can bring the marginalized, such as gay men and women, the elderly, people of color, and abused women  into  mainstream.
Joining him will be:
—Michael Sadowski, whose novel, Indiana Queer, is the 2024 gold medal winner for Book of Fiction.
Michael’s work . ranges from memoir to fiction to research on youth development and education. His memoir, Men I’ve Never Been, was named one of the Best Gay and Lesbian Books of All Time by Book Authority and was shortlisted for the William Faulkner-William Wisdom nonfiction award. His 2016 book Safe Is Not Enough was featured by NPR and was cited by GLSEN founder Kevin Jennings as “the most important book written on LGBTQ issues in education in my lifetime.” Michael’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, LGBTQ Nation, The Advocate, and the Harvard Education Letter, for which he won a National Press Club Award. He has been a faculty member at Harvard and Stanford universities and is currently a professor and administrator at Bard College.

—Gail Waldstein, winner of the 2024 gold medal for essay with Warehousing the Elderlyand is one of four authors whose combined collection, The Four Faces of Eve, was runner-up. Gail practiced pediatric pathology for almost 40 years  and single-parented three children 15 of those years.She began serious creative writing in the late ‘90s, winning numerous awards in creative nonfiction, fiction and poetry. Her work appears in Nimrod, New Letters, Zone 3, The Iowa Review, Pearl, the Double Dealer, Harpur Palate, The Comstock Review, Kaleidoscope, Puerta del Sol and numerous other journals as well as several anthologies. She won the 2013 gold medal for poetry in the Faulkner-Wisdom competition. and Two essays were nominated for a Pushcart.

—Yoruba Batrip-Coleman, whose story Selfie, is a 2024Runner-up. She grew up in Reno, NV but after living in New Orleans for 27 years, considers herself a New Orleanian. She began writing poetry and fiction after publishing several research articles at Dillard University, where she taught Public Health and Education & Theory. Her fictional works include literary fiction, urban fantasy and YA novellas and novels.
Her current poetry collection is Tangles, Knots and Knaps—more than and not just a bane of shame on a little black girl’s mane to relax. She was a finalist in the Faulkner –Wisdom Competition in 2017 for both the poetry and novella categories, and short-listed in 2018 for poetry. In 2019 she was runner-up in the poetry category

—Lisa Porter, tied for the 2024 gold medal for best book of non-fiction, for In Search of the Thickest Towel. Her collection of poems, Del Bac, was published by Finishing Line Press in 2023. It was a finalist for the 2004 WILLA Award (Women Writing the West). Keep the Singing (FLP) was published in 2021, and Red Stain (FLP 2014) was finalist for both the 2015 Arizona New Mexico Book Award and the 2015 WILLA Award (Women Writing the West). Porter was founding director of the Other Voices Women’s Reading Series at Antigone Books in Tucson, AZ. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies. Several of her essays were Notable Essays in the Best American Essays serie Concurrent  Co|

4:00 p.m. —B-K House, Main Floor
War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.
—William Faulkner

War, Cold or Hot, and Politics, Sweet or Sour, and Spying have been the Strongest Source of Inspiration for Literature throughout the ages and these topics are still going strong. Why?
Presented by Literary Agent Laura Gross with:
—Michael Ditchfield, 2024 winner of the Society’s gold medal for Best Novella for No Such Agency, title of which is the old derrogatory nickname of the National Security Agency.
—Jon Geggenheimer, author of four published novels, including his last, an alternative history about WWII.
(Scroll up for Photo and Bio for Laura Gross.)
Michael Ditchfield is a writer of novels, plays, haiku, essays, and short stories.  A quarter-century of practicing social work taught him that life is fragile, life is dangerous, everyone is wounded, yet people do heroic, selfless, and beautiful things. He tries to capture that spirit in his writing. He previously won the Faulkner Society’s Gold Medal for his essay, Zen and the Art of Dementia, about caring for his mother suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He lives at Martha’s Vineyard with his wife, Lynn Ditchfield, also a writer.

Jon Gegenheimer has been the elected clerk of court for Jefferson Parish since 1988. As such, he is the parish’s longest serving elected official. Since 2010, he has authored and published four books. His most recent story, Churchill vs. Hitler, is about a golf match between the British Prime Minister and the Führer in neutral Sweden three months before the outbreak of WWII. The match is a template for Churchill’s war strategy and raises the question: How would the war have ended if the match had not happened? This piece of alternative history is very much about the interplay between foreign-policy politics  and the conduct of war. 

5:30: p. m  – Adjourn
Free evening to go out on the town… or do manuscript critiques
There are two good restaurants within brief walking distance: Muriel’s at the Corner of St. Ann Street and Jackson Square and Tableau of the Brennan’s Family of Restaurants at the corner of St. Peter Street and Jackson Square are  less than two blocks from Hotel Provincial. For other restaurants and music venues, we suggest you take Uber or Lyft,

Sunday, February 29th
8:30 a. m.  –  Hotel Provincial Meeting Room
Continental Breakfast
In every writer there is a certain amount of the scavenger.
—William Faulkner9:00 a. m. –  Provincial Meeting Room
If It’s on the Internet, It’s Mine!
Thomas Mallon will discuss the need for integrity in literature during this era of readily available information that can easily be stolen. Mallon is amulti-genre best-selling author of such novels as Fellow Travelers, a story about the perils for gay men and women during the era of hate generated by Senator Joesph McCarthy, recently made into a popular TV series, which debuted on Showtime last year and currently is streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video, and Landfall, largely set in New Orleans and the story of how George W. Bush screwed up his legacy by his mis-handling of the Katerina aftermath, and non-fiction, such as Mrs. Paine’s Garage, a chronicle of Dallas housewife Ruth Paine’s friendship with Lee Harvey Oswald and his wife Marina Oswald.

9:30 a. m. – Hotel Provincial
Manuscript Critiques

10:30 a. m. – Beauregard – Keyes House, 1113 Chartres Street.
The past is never dead. It’s not even past.
—William Faulkner

How ethnic origins and growing-up environments inform the work of writers and affect acceptance of their work.
Led by Literary Agent Lisa Leshne with:
—David Brennan, who is of Irish descent and has a country home in Ireland and is involved in Irish repertory theatre.
—Daniel Turtel, of Jewish Heritage, who grew up in Asbury Park, NJ. Dan won the Society’s 2020 gold medal for  Best Book of Fiction with his first novel, Greetings from Asbury Park.
—David Pelzer, 2024 Runner-up for his Short Story, Box Canyon, describes his heritage as “Mutt” European, a mix of Scottish and French on his mother’s side and south German on his father’s side. “And somewhere in the mix, says Ancestry, there is a bit of Swedish mixed in.”
(Scroll up to Critiquing Agents for Lisa’s bio and photo.)

 David Brennan has for the last two years  served on the Advisory Council of The Harry Ransom Center, University Texas, Austin, a major research center for literature, film and theatre, and on the Advisory Board of the Irish Repertory Theatre. For three years, he was a student in Raymond Kennedy’s Columbia University writing workshop. His short story, Whistling Thorns, was shortlisted this year for the Faulkner-Wisdom competition. His novel,  A New Kind of Flame Kindles in America, was a finalist in the novel category. He has advised entrepreneurs on capital needs and wealth management for over 30 years. He and his wife live in NYC and have a country home in Ireland.

Daniel Turtel was graduated from Duke University with a degree in mathematics. While at Duke, he began studying writing with a legendary novelist, the late Michael Malone. He earned his MFA degree from The New School on a Provost Scholarship. Dan won the Society’s gold medal for Best Novella in 2018 for Among the Porcelain and had a string of runner-up and short-list recognitions for his work. His first novel, Greetings from Asbury Park, was awarded the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s 2020-21 gold medal for Best Novel. He was signed by literary agent Michelle Tessler, who sold the novel. It was published a year later. His second novel,  The Family Morfawitz, was published in February, 2023.. His fiction has been published in The Brooklyn Rail, The Baltimore Review, and other journals. Currenlty he lives in New York.

David Alan Pelzer is a former agricultural journalist, based in Highland Park IL. His stories have appeared in the 2019 volume of Hemingway Shorts, and the anthologies Turning Points and Meaningful Conflicts, published by Windy City Publishers in Chicago. His upcoming novel The Blue Guitar is a finalist in this year’s Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society’s Book-in-Progress category.And his Short Story, Box Canyon is a 2024 Runner-up. Like Rosemary James, David an his wife Trudy are proud parents of a purebred male standard
poodle, Alexander the Great, but “We love Cat Ladies, too.”

 

11:45 – Beauregard – Keyes House, Main Floo

History is not was, it is.
—William Faulkner

History is not was, it is.
—William Faulkner

When current world crazy-making clamor makes you long to get away, history offers diverse escape exits for readers and writers of all genres.
Presented by literary agent Deborah Grosvenor, whose special love as an agent is well told stories with windows on history. Joining her will be:
—Ellen Coggeshall, 2024 runner up with her novel, A Tale of Five Tigers, which offers aunique look at a troubled year, 1975: the U.S. was expelled from Vietnam, Indian Prime Minister Indira Ghandi declared a National Emergency, Saudi Arabia’s king was assassinated, and Cambodia descended into chaos and genocide. These historical events are the back drop for the individual stories of back-packers exploring in the lands of the tiger, each experiencing a tiger moment.

—Patrick Earl Ryan, a 2024 Runner-up with his book of fiction, Fancy Gumbo, New Orleans Stories, a recent history of what it was like to grow up in New Orleans, narrated in 14 episodes. Patrick, who lives in San Francisco, grew up in a New Orleans family spanning five continents and seven generations in the city. His debut short story collection If We Were Electric won the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Fancy Gumbo is a collection of 14 stories many of which aare inspired by afternoon porch and stoop conversations and the late night family story-telling that happens around the dinner table. His fiction has appeared in Ontario Review, Pleiades, Best New American Voices, Men on Men, James White Review, and Gertrude, among others.

 —David Levene, who is coming from London to participate, in Faulkner for All,has recently completed an historical novel,
The Buccaneers’ King, which is set in 17th Century Jamaica during the Golden Age of Piracy in the Caribbean. He studied history at the University of London and holds a master’s degree in creative writing from London South Bank University.  His YouTube channel, Tolkien Untangled, explores all aspects of JRR Tolkien’s fantasy literature, with the aim of making those writings more accessible to both new and long-term fans of Middle-earth. He currently has 150,000 subscribers. Steve Kash, runner-up for Non-Fiction book with The Card, which  details the cult Christian world of and earlier era and offers insight into today’s Christian nationalism. He is a freelance and non-fiction writer who lives in Terre Haute, IN. For many years, he taught developmental writing at a local community college. His love for hiking and travel provided him with background for his non-fiction book, The Card, which details the seemingly uncanny interconnectedness of events passing into his life. Steve’s articles have appeared in several publications in Indiana and Illinois as well as AutoWeek, Western Horseman, and Grit.
— Nancy Dixon, Ph.D. has been studying and writing about New Orleans literature, culture, and history for over 20 years. Her first book, Fortune and Misery: Sallie Rhett Roman of New Orleans, a Biographical Portrait and Selected Fiction (LSUP 1999), won the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH) Humanities Book of the Year in 2000. Her latest book, is N.O. Lit: 200 Years of New Orleans Literature. Dr. Dixon is a professor of English at Dillard University in New Orleans.

 1 p.m. —  B-K House, Main Floor.
The presence alone of Faulkner in our midst makes a great difference in what the writer can and cannot permit himself to do.Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down.
—Flannery O’Connor

O’Connor’s railroading metaphor wittily captures much of the respect and unease William Faulkner’s example brought the worldwide community of authors. Few other writers have exerted as profound an influence on literature as Faulkner. The two authors were of the same Southern Gothic persuasion  and came from similar
backwoods rural areas, they each managed to get out and about, Faulkner famously to Hollywood, and O’Connor to New Your City.
Lawrence William Coates, a fan of and scholar in Faulkner’s work, a  winner of the Society’s gold medal for his Novella Boom and the judge of this year’s novella category, will introduce Katheryn Krotzer Laborde, a writer of prose,  a Professor of English at Xavier University, and another winner of the Society’s gold medal for her novella, His Name Was Mu Bob Wang, a deceptively clever story of the fall-out from a one night stand. She is a scholar in the work of Flannery O’Conner and her new book is about O’Conner’s time in New York, Flannery O’Connor’s Manhattan. Katheryn will discuss the concept and content of the book.

2:00 P.M. – B-K House, Main Floor
It is the poet’s, the writer’s privilege, indeed duty to help man endure by lifting his heart.
—William Faulkner
The Poet’s Life is an Odyssey of Discovery and Desire to use art to instill in others the Desire for Discovery.
Master poet and writer of poetic prose, William “Bill” Lavender, will name the subject, “Diversity,” and challenge attending poets to a duel. Bill will read a short poem of his own and while he is reciting, other poets will be drafting a verse to read. Joining Bill for the challenge match will be Jessica Kennison, poet and co-founder of the New Orleans Writers Workshop, who judged the Poetry Collection category this year, and her winner: Patrick T. Reardon, winner of the 2024 gold medal for his poetry collection Every Marred Thing: A Time in America; former Poet Laureate of Louisiana,Mona Lisa Saloy, whose new collection is: Black Creole Chronicles: Poems; a former winner of the Society’s gold medal for poetry, Andy Young, whose new poetry collection is Museum of the Soon to be Departed, due out in October; Rodger Kamenetz who judged the Individual Poem category, and Rodger’s winner, Janet Ford for her poem: My Mother Stands on Her Feet for the Last Time

ALIHOT AWARD
William “Bill” Lavender, Publisher & Poet for All Seasons
A poet, novelist, musician, carpenter, and publisher, lives in New Orleans with wife, historian Nancy Dixon. And his son and daughter-in-law just made him the grandfather of triplets. He founded Lavender Ink, a small press devoted mainly to poetry, in 1995, and he founded Diálogos, an imprint devoted to cross-cultural literatures (mostly in translation) in 2011. His poems, stories and essays have appeared in dozens of print and web journals and anthologies, including Contemporary Literature, Poetics Today, and The Normal School. His verse memoir, Memory Wing, dubbed by Rodger Kamentetz “a contemporary autobiographical masterpiece,” was published by Black Widow in 2011. His novel, Q, a neo-picaresque view of the surreal world of the future, appeared from Trembling Pillow in 2013. A chapbook, Surrealism, was published in 2016 by Lavender Ink. He is the co-founder, with Megan Burns of Trembling Pillow Press, and of the New Orleans Poetry Festival. Bill will be saluted at the Faulkner Society’s 34th black tie annual meeting at the historic Ursuline Convent, 1110 Chartres Street.
3:30 p. m.
Adjourn.
(We Must be out of the building by 3:30 as the Beauregard – Keyes Foundation is havingan event.)

6:45 p. m. – Doors Open at St. Mary’s Chapel of the Ursuline Convent.
(Please arrive then)
7:00 p. m. – Program Starts Promptly
The 34th Annual Meeting of the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society
Welcome:
Angela “Angie  Bowlin—recently appointed Co-Chair of the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and 20-year member and patron of the Society—was graduated from LSU in Baton Rouge and Tulane University School of Law.  She has practiced law in the private sector since 1991and has been heavily involved in civic activities since before college.  She is a sustaining member of the Junior League of New Orleans, has formerly served on the Boards of Directors of Crescent Care/NO Aids Task Force and Project Lazarus and as Chair of these boards. She has been an Executive Board member of French Quarter Citizens and currently serves on the executive board of VCPORA.   A member of Muses, The English Speaking Union, several professional organizations, she assists in fundraising for various charities.  Recently, she was named for Leadership in Law by CityBusiness.

The Sly, Dry Humor of William Faulkner:
Lawrence William Coates, a long time Faulkner Fan and Scholar. His talk will set the scene for a reading from the famous Faulkner novel
which is loaded with noir humor, by actress and voice talent:,
Sophie Amoss, who will read as Dewey Dell, a country teenaged girl who has gotten herself in a passle of trouble.
Ms. Amoss is an Audie award-winning audiobook narrator, as well as a commercial and video game voice actor. After 11 years of working in New York, she recently relocated back to her hometown of New Orleans where she records from her home studio. Sophie has brought her voice to such brands as AirWick, ExxonMobil, Microsoft, Olay, and the NBA; as well as Blizzard’s Hearthstone and World of Warcraft. She has narrated audiobooks for James Patterson, Andy Weir, Chuck Palahniuk, Judy Blume, Lorrie Moore, Peter Swanson, Alafair Burke, and many more. She is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA and Actors’ Equity Association. Sophie received her MFA in Acting from Columbia University.
The program will continue with the presentation of gold medals to the 2024 winners of the William Faulkner – William Wisdom competition and the 2024 ALIHOT honorees.
8:30: Convent Garden.
(We will exit the Church Through the Convent to the garden. The party will offer drinks—including our 2024 signature cocktail, Cajun Coolaid—dinner made from recipes of ALIHOT Honoree Marcelle Bienvenu, and traditional Acadian music including Zydeco by the popular South Louisiana group:  T Marie and Bayou Juju play traditional and original Louisiana music. The band started through gatherings at fires, suppers, porches, and levees, and you’ll feel this vibrant community of friendship echo through all of their music.  In addition to honoring traditional Cajun, Creole, Zydeco, Swamp Pop, Country, Blues, and New Orleans songs, the band also contributes to the next generation of South Louisiana sound with their own original tunes, performed in both Louisiana French and English. These days you can catch  them at dive bars, dance halls, and festivals, sharing that same good juju and joy. In addition to performing regularly in New Orleans, the band has toured in California, Colorado, North Carolina, France, and Spain. Get on your dancing shoes and shrimp boots, and join in on …. Cajun below sea level, To hear them, visit their web site:
https://www.marieisabelle.org/tmarieandbayoujuju.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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