Longreads | Peauxdunque Writers Alliance

Back in January we started off a new Peauxdunque year with an expanded cast of characters and the publication of Maurice Carlos Ruffin‘s debut novel, We Cast a Shadow. Since then, I’ve been mainly delinquent in sharing the TONS of good news about Peauxdunque publications and readings and prize nominations. So, first a picture of that long-ago January meeting, and then on to the good news:

The publication news:

Where to begin? Well, big news, Maurice sold his second book to Random House/One World, a collection of his searing short stories titled The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You. We’ll, of course, report on details such as the publication date as soon as we know, because you won’t want to miss this. Also, Maurice’s novel, We Cast a Shadow, is now in its second printing.

New Peauxdunque poet Anne Babson has had her poem “Altarpiece Diptych” accepted for publication by Canadian journal QWERTY. Her poem “My Afternoon with Laura Ingalls” will be in the next issue of Silk Road Review. Anne’s review of Melinda Palacio’s Bird Forgiveness is in the current Louisiana Literature. And her play Reenactment is in the latest issue of Review Americana.

Lavinia Spalding had her beautiful creative nonfiction piece “The Cabin” published by Longreads. Emilie Staat’s essay, “The Passenger,” was published in Gris-Gris. Susan Vallee will have a piece profiling We Cast a Shadow in the upcoming arts and culture issue of VIE Magazine. And Tad Bartlett’s short story, “Elysian Fields,” was published in the April 2019 issue of New Limestone Review.

Upcoming readings:

Cassie Pruyn will be reading on April 30 at the main branch of the East Jefferson Parish Public Library with Ben Morris, Brad Richard, Elizabeth Gross, Ben Aleshire, and Esme Franklin. A week before, on April 23, Anne Babson will be reading at the same location on a bill with Melinda Palacio, Allison Pellegrin, and Paris Tate.

Maurice Ruffin will be reading at the Argenta Reading Series in Little Rock, Arkansas, on April 25. This weekend (right now) he’s participating as the keynote speaker at the Muse and the Marketplace conference in Boston.

Prizes/nominations

A little tardy in announcing these, but Peauxdunque’s Larry Wormington received a Pushcart nomination from Elm Leaves Journal for his story “Balloon Animals“; and Tad Bartlett and Maurice Ruffin both received Pushcart nominations from members of the Pushcart Board of Contributing Editors for work they published in 2018.

The wait for the publication release of Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s We Cast a Shadow is almost over! In eight more days, on January 29, all those pre-ordered copies will hit folks’ mailboxes, and the shiny covers will hit bookstore shelves, and the release party will rock the Three Keys venue at the Ace Hotel in downtown New Orleans. So far, We Cast a Shadow has made “must read” and “most anticipated” lists put out by Barnes and Noble, Garden and Gun, New York Magazine’s Vulture Magazine, Fodor’s Go List, Book Riot, Southern Independent Booksellers’ Association, Southern Living, Cosmopolitan, LitHub, Augusta Chronicla, HuffPost, L.A. Times, BuzzFeed, The Millions, A/V Club, Parade Magazine, Poets and Writers, Nylon, PopSugar, Bookbub, Writers Bone, and Read It Forward. Starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, with more to come! So come celebrate with Maurice and Peauxdunque and everyone else in New Orleans from 6 to 9 p.m. at Three Keys at the Ace Hotel, January 29!

And more good Peauxdunque publication news abounds. Lavinia Spalding has had a beautiful non-fiction piece about life and love and eviction in a cabin in Utah accepted by Longreads, which will run later this month or in February. And Emilie Staat‘s essay, “The Passenger,” was just published in the latest issue of Gris-Gris.

In addition, writer and photographer L. Kasimu Harris has four new shows that include his photography opening in the next few weeks:Dandy Lion (Re)Articulated Black Masculinity is now on view, from January 18 to April 8, at the Hammonds House in Atlanta. Harris will debut three photographs for the (Per)Sister: Incarcerated Women of Louisiana exhibition at the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, opening on January 19 and on view until July 6. Truth, By Any Means Necessary is a solo exhibition of Harris’s work at Grambling State University’s Dunbar Gallery. This exhibition opens January 29 and runs until February 26. And four photos from Harris’s War on the Benighted Series continue to travel with the Race & Revolution: Still Separate, Still Unequal exhibition, from January 29 to April 6 at the Woskob Family Gallery of Penn State University.