Another “Yeah, You Write” in the books

Posted on April 19, 2014 by tadbartlett

The second installment in the “Yeah, You Write” word rebellion series let loose at Cafe Istanbul last night. Many people came together to fill the room and make the night a success, with readings and remarks from John M. Barry, Cassie Pruyn, jewel bush, Benjamin Percy, Joseph Boyden, Emilie Staat, and Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly. Emcee Nick Fox moved the night along, regaling the audience with the exploits of the readers, while the photographs of L. Kasimu Harris and the innovative turntable work of DJ Seppe punctuated every point of the show.

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Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly came bearing gifts of moonshine, and read from the dramatic inundation scene from The Tilted World. Ben Percy’s dynamic reading from Red Moon was preceded appropriately enough by his horror-rendition of a line from the childhood classic, Good Night, Moon. Joseph Boyden came in from far travels and despite illness to utterly transfix the room with a chapter from his soon-to-be-released-in-the-U.S.-novel, The Orenda. jewel bush punched the lights out with her boxing-themed, coming-of-age-in-a-rough-world short story. And Peauxdunque’s own Emilie Staat and Cassie Pruyn brought intense and passionate memoir and poetry to the stage.

Leading them all off was John Barry and his reading from Rising Tide, followed by his remarks on the attempts of the oil and gas industry to rise above the law in Louisiana’s fight to protect itself from the increased storm risks caused by the industry’s destruction of wetlands (everyone, that message for the legislators was “Don’t let politics kill the flood authority’s independence,” and “Let the courts decide the fate of the levees lawsuit, not the legislature, because no one should be above the law,” and those legislators were Raymond Garofalo, Christopher Leopold, Neil Abramson, and Nick Lorusso).

A huge shout-out to the folks at Cafe Istanbul, without whom the night would not have been a success. Cafe Istanbul is clearly a vital heartbeat in the revival of New Orleans’ many communities, including its artists and writers. Also, many thanks to the good folks at Garden District Book Shop, who came through on short notice with the books that sold to the enthusiastic audience, making the night a further success.

Tonight

Posted on April 18, 2014 by tadbartlett

Can you believe it? Tonight. The Second coming of the original “Yeah, You Write!” event. It’s more than a reading, more than a photo exhibit, more than a dance party, more than a night out on the most incredible town this side of the moon. It’s all of that.

It started as a vision, something slightly more than a whim. One night in late summer in 2011, Maurice and Emilie and Terri and I sat around and talked about it, put it into words: To put great writers on great stages, put them on the pedestals on which we put our musicians and other artists, take them out of the usual context, fete them. When it first translated into something real two and a half years ago, I was a bit in disbelief we pulled it off. And now we have the audacity to do it a second time, with the help and guidance of a host of new Peauxdunquians (April, Denise, Sabrina, and Kasimu) with another slate of amazing writers and artists. I’m still flabbergasted, and extremely grateful that all these great folks said “Yes,” then and now. These are my literary heroes, and many of them I feel lucky to call my friends now, too. We’re so happy to share them with you. Beth Ann Fennelly,Tom Franklin, John Barry, Joseph Boyden, Ben Percy, jewel bush, Emilie Staat, Cassie Pruyn. Photos by the always amazing L Kasimu Harris. Tunes by the gifted DJ Seppe. Emcee’d by the extraordinary Nick Fox. We’ll see you tonight. 7:00 at Cafe Istanbul.

The return of ‘Yeah, You Write!’

Posted on March 27, 2014 by tadbartlett

We’re excited to announce that our original event series, “Yeah, You Write,” is back! Last time we billed it as a “literary concert”; this time it’s a full-on “word rebellion.” Back in October 2011, Peauxdunque launched its series of putting top writers on top stages, with our original event at Tipitina’s. This time around, on the night of April 18, 2014, we’ll feature writers, images, and music on the stage at Cafe Istanbul, at 2372 St. Claude Avenue.

MC Nick Fox, with Amanda Boyden, Gian Smith, Terri Stoor, Kelly Harris-DeBerry, Mat Johnson, and Bill Loehfelm, October 2011

This year’s slate of writers includes best-selling and prize-winning authors Beth Ann Fennelly and Tom Franklin, who will be reading from their new collaborative work, The Tilted World; Joseph Boyden, winner of the Giller Prize, whose new novel, The Orenda, has already been winning awards and praise in Canada and which will be released in the United States in May; John Barry, whose seminal work on the great 1927 flood, Rising Tide, informed much of The Tilted World, and who is currently front and center in a fight to stop a new great flood as southeast Louisiana washes away; Benjamin Percy, whose most recent novel, Red Moon, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, IndieNext Pick, Amazon “Top Ten Best Books of May,” CNN’s Top Ten Books of May, iBookstore Editor’s Choice, and an Entertainment Weekly “Must List” selection; insightful local essayist and writer jewel bush, founder of the MelaNated Writers Collective; Emilie Staat, winner of the 2012 Faulkner-Wisdom Gold Medal for the essay; and stellar local poet Cassie Pruyn, finalist in the most recent Indiana Review 1/2K Prize.

Music for the event will be provided by DJ Sep, and the event will feature the projected images of writer/photographer L. Kasimu Harris. Doors open at 7:00 p.m., with the words set to start flowing at 7:30. $5 cover charge at the door.

Our take on The Tilted World

Posted on September 29, 2013 by tadbartlett

This is an unauthorized account of the history of Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly in the development of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance. And this is also to tell the rest of you why you must go out and buy The Tilted World, the novel collaboratively written by Tom and Beth Ann that goes on sale on October 1. First, the review. Then, an explanation – a history, if you will – of why we’re devoting space to The Tilted World on the website of the PWA. Following that, some important dates.

The Tilted World

Tom (Smonk, Hell at the Breech, Poachers, and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and Beth Ann (Great With Child: Letters to a Young Mother, Tender Hooks, Unmentionables, and A Different Kind of Hunger) have teamed up for that rarest of artistic collaborations: the successful collaboratively written novel. The Tilted World is the result of that project, seamlessly melding Tom’s travels in the violent and yearning heart of raw characters with Beth Ann’s gift for the lyrical and precise exploration of fierce human experience.

The Tilted World takes place primarily in and around the fictional Mississippi town of Hobnob, at the time of the great flood of 1927. The book traces the path of Dixie Clay into her marriage to moonshiner-extraordinaire Jesse Swan Holliver, an initially passionate relationship that diminished into a hard-fought business proposition after the loss of their only child. Jesse sold the shine, while Dixie distilled the most highly sought-after spirits in the region (the descriptions of Dixie’s craft might make the driest reader thirst for a nip of her goods). At the same time, Tilted World traces another path, that of revenue agent Ingersoll, dispatched with his partner Ham to the area of Hobnob, first to investigate the disappearance of two other revenue agents and then to investigate rumors of a plan to blow the levee to take pressure off downriver New Orleans. When Ingersoll comes across a crying infant at the bloody scene of a violent armed robbery, his own past as an unwanted orphan drives him to find a welcoming home for the baby, leading him to Dixie’s front porch. From that point (at the business end of Dixie’s rifle), Ingersoll’s and Dixie’s paths are inextricably linked, swirling around each other in tighter and tighter concentrices until they are bound to intersect in a place where the world is upside-down and mostly drowned.

Along the way, Tom and Beth Ann take us through a world where moonshine whiskey flows as fast as the swollen river, where no one can tell the difference between those who’ll do anything to save their town from those who have been corrupted by money and drink to sell the town down the river, a real world with strong women, crooked men, camaraderie, betrayal, and love. The book travels through taverns, general stores, the front lines of the first Great War, explosions, deluges, inundations, orphanages, Chicago blues joints, Alabama backwoods, Mississippi hard-scrabble cropland and backswamp. No line is delivered in tired or expected prose. No words are wasted.

It’s a fast and beautiful ride. Buy it. Read it.

Tom, Beth Ann, and Peauxdunque

Early, before there was a Peauxdunque, I first met Tom at the Words and Music Conference in New Orleans right after his novel Smonk came out. Smonk is a violent carnival of a word-ride (or a word carnival of a violent ride), a mind-blower. But it was a great introduction for me to a writer who grew up and wrote about the places near and around where I grew up, both of us from similar podunks in the central Alabama woods and riverplains.

A couple years later, not long after Peauxdunque was born, Peauxdunque denizen Maurice Carlos Ruffin was a finalist in the short story category of the William Faulkner-William Wisdom competition, which Tom was judging. After he picked someone else as the winner and Maurice as the first runner-up, I accosted Tom in the middle of Royal Street late one morning during the Words and Music conference. I’d intended it as a joking, friendly thing, but I’d had a couple bloody maries, and I could tell from the look in Tom’s eyes that my intentions weren’t being served and that it was possible I was a crazy person. When Beth Ann judged the final round of the essay category the next year, where I had a terrible essay as a finalist, I did not repeat the performance when the piece didn’t place. (I also don’t intend to repeat the performance at this year’s conference, where Beth Ann judged the final round of the poetry category and a beautiful poem by Peauxdunquian Cassie Pruyn was chosen second-runner-up and Peauxdunque’s J.Ed. Marston also had a finalist piece.)

A couple years after the incident on Royal Street, as the PWA really started to grow up, P’dunque’s Terri Stoor, J.Ed., and I were in Tom’s workshop at the Oxford American Summit for Ambitious Writers in Petit Jean, Arkansas, where we met soon-to-be members Emily Choate and Susan Bennett Vallee. A couple years after that, Terri, J.Ed., Maurice, Emily, and I were in a workshop led by Beth Ann at the Yokshop Conference in Oxford, Mississippi. Seemingly at every step in the development of Peauxdunque, Tom, Beth Ann, or both, were there.

Some important dates

Catch up with Tom and Beth Ann on their book tour this fall:

Tuesday, October 1st
OXFORD, MS
The Powerhouse Community Arts Center
“Tilted and Pickled” Book Release Party
with John Currence
413 S. 14th Street
Oxford, MS
6pm

Wednesday, October 2nd
JACKSON, MS
Lemuria Books
4465 I-55 N
Jackson, MS
5pm

Thursday, October 3rd
GREENWOOD, MS
Turnrow Book Company
304 Howard Street
Greenwood, MS
5:30pm

Friday, October 4th
MEMPHIS, TN
Burke’s Book Store
936 S. Cooper Street
Memphis, TN
5:30pm

Tuesday, October 8th
NEW YORK, NY
The Strand Bookstore
828 Broadway

New York, NY
7pm
*Joint signing with Bill Cheng,
author of SOUTHERN CROSS THE DOG

Wednesday, October 9th
DECATUR, GA
Dekalb County Public Library
Georgia Center for the Book
215 Sycamore Street
Decatur, GA
7pm

Thursday, October 10th
RALEIGH, NC
Quail Ridge Books & Music
3522 Wade Avenue
Raleigh, NC
7:30pm

Friday, October 11th – Saturday, October 12th
NASHVILLE, TN
Southern Festival of the Books
Tennessee Humanities Council
301 6th Avenue North
Nashville, TN

Wednesday, October 16th
BIRMINGHAM, AL
Alabama Booksmith
2926 19th Place S
Birmingham, AL
4pm

Thursday, October 17th
LITTLE ROCK, AR
South on Main
(Reading, Performance & Signing)
1304 Main Street
Little Rock, AR
7pm

Friday, October 18th
CLARKSDALE, MS
Seven Chimneys Farm
145 Delta Avenue
Clarksdale, MS
7pm

Saturday, October 19th
GREENVILLE, MS
The Weatherbee House
Signing during the “Hot Tamale Festival”
509 Washington Avenue
Greenville, MS

Tuesday, October 22nd
CHICAGO, IL
The Book Cellar
4736-38 N Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL
7pm

Wednesday, October 23rd
HIGHLAND PARK, IL
Highland Park Public Library
494 Laurel Avenue
Highland Park, IL
7pm

Thursday, October 24th
MILWAUKEE, WI
Boswell Book Company
2559 N Downer Avenue
Milwaukee, WI
7pm

Wednesday, October 30th
BRUCE, MS
Jesse Yance Memorial Library
314 N. Newburger Avenue
Bruce, MS
12pm

Friday November 1st – Saturday, November 2nd
BATON ROUGE, LA
Louisiana Book Festival
701 N. 4th Street
Baton Rouge, LA

Thursday, November 21st
NEW YORK, NY
The Century Club
7 West 43rd Street
New York, NY
*Concert & Reading*

Friday, November 22nd
MONTGOMERY, AL
Capitol Books & News
1140 E. Fairview Avenue
Montgomery, AL
5pm

Sunday, November 24
MOBILE, AL
Ben May Main Library
Bernheim Hall 701 Government Street
Mobile, AL
2pm

Saturday, November 23rd
GROVE HILL, AL
The Gift Gallery
135 North Jackson Street
Grove Hill, AL
12pm

Tuesday, November 26th
FAIRHOPE, AL
Page & Palette
32 S. Section Street
Fairhope, AL
6pm

Friday, December 6th
NEW ORLEANS, LA
Words & Music Festival
624 Pirate’s Alley
New Orleans, LA

Saturday, December 8th
NEW ORLEANS, LA
Garden District Books
2727 Prytania Street

End-of-year plaudits roll in for Friends of Peauxdunque

Posted on January 12, 2012 by tadbartlett

Here in Peauxdunque, we are not just a bunch of navel-gazing narcissists (though we do not deny the charge), but we also want to celebrate the great fortune of our friends (hereafter “Friends of Peauxdunque” or “FOPs”)! The end of 2011 brought much in the way of good news for our various friends, auxiliaries, benefactors, etc. (NOT hereafter “FABFEs”).

Tom Carson‘s novel, Daisy Buchanan’s Daughter, was named to the Washington Post‘s “Notable Fiction of 2011” list; and was also included in a Vanity Fair article discussing trends in genre-bending.

Mat Johnson‘s Pym also appeared on the WP “Notable Fiction of 2011” list, as well as Salon.com’s Best Fiction of 2011 list. It was also featured in Vanity Fair’s list of “The Best Books of 2011 You Haven’t Read” (which listing might be a mixed blessing, come to think of it). Actually, it might be easier to try to compile a list of the “Best of 2011” lists that Pym isn’t on. A small sampling of additional lists includes The Houston Chronicle, The A.V. Club, and Library Thing. Recall that Mat, winner of the 2011 Dos Passos Literature Prize, came and read at Peauxdunque’s Yeah You Write literary concert at Tipitina’s this past fall.

Tom Franklin, in whose workshop several Peauxdunqians landed during last summer’s Oxford American Summit for Ambitious Writers, has garnered a passel of awards for his novel, Crooked Letter Crooked Letter, including toward the end of 2011 the Crime Writers Association’s Golden Dagger.

Great work, folks. Peauxdunque’s glad to know you, and hopes 2012 brings even more of the same!