Louisiana Book Fest II: And Hint Fiction

First, I was very happy to learn that one of my pieces was chosen by Robert Swartwood for the “Hint Fiction” anthology. Some of you might recall that I mentioned this anthology previously on my blog here. I’m tickled to be included, and with such names as Peter Straub, Jack Ketchum, Joe Lansdale, F. Paul Wilson, and Joyce Carol Oates included, as well as talented but-not-yet-quite-so-famous writers such as our own Kathleen A. Ryan, I feel in pretty good company. Check out Robert Swartwood’s blog for more information.

As for the Louisiana Book Festival, Lana and I had a great time. We went up on Friday evening for the opening party, which was held at the State Library and offered a variety of wonderful foods, including delicious fried catfish, shrimp, and a chocolate fountain that Lana was very appreciative of.

My talk on Saturday morning went well. I only had about 8 folks in the audience, 6 of whom were teen aged girls. I wondered if they had been mislead by the title of my talk, about “Witch” of Talera. But they were attentive and took notes, and a couple of them even asked questions at the end so that was nice. I then had my signing at the Barnes & Noble tent and they had plenty of copies of my books. I was not the busiest author there but most folks signing didn’t have a lot of people vying for their books. I did sign some for the store as well.

After that, Lana and I wandered around. She took many, many pictures, of which I will feature a few here. The Capitol grounds are quite lovely and the building itself is amazing. There were a lot of cool booths and some very fine Zydeco music. There were a few couple dancing and that was quite entertaining as well. Naturally, I bought a few books.

When I finally did get home it was to find that Arkansas was giving Florida all they could handle in football. In fact, Arkansas should have won that game. Our kicker missed two field goals. Florida won by three points. There was also a couple of horrible penalties against Arkansas on one Florida drive that helped them score a touchdown to tie the game against the Razorbacks. As you can imagine, I was doing some serious ranting at the TV.

I started to load some of the pics but blogger doesn't seem to be cooperating so I'm going to post this and then try to upload more pics later!

The Louisiana Book Festival

Festival day is almost here, and I’m excited! The Louisiana Book Festival starts Friday, October 16, but most of the action is on Saturday, October 17. Lana and I will be going up Friday afternoon for the Authors Party dinner from 7:00 to 9:00 at the State Library. Then we plan to just get a room, if we can find one nearby, because my talk is on Saturday morning from 10:00 to 10:45. I’ll be talking about my writing, with specific reference to Witch of Talera, which is my most recent novel.


If you’re not familiar with the Louisiana Book Festival, it’s held on the Capitol grounds in Baton Rouge. It basically starts at 10:00 and ends at 5:30. The general link is here. And there’s also a link to my profile here. My talk is in the Capitol building itself, in House Committee Room 4, which is in the basement (Alario Hall). I’ll be doing a signing at the Barnes & Noble tent at 11:00, which is along Spanish Town Road on the Capitol grounds. After that I plan to hit a bunch of other exciting panels and presentations.

The festival is free and open to the public, and they have all kinds of things for kids to do as well. There will be booths up during the day with food and exhibits, and there are kid’s tents, live music, a cooking demonstration, and much more. There’ll be lots of books. Hurray! The State library and State museum are also right there. At 6:00 there is a free concert by the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.

If you’re going to be in the Baton Rouge area on Saturday, stop by. The Capitol grounds are gorgeous and there should be many interesting sights and sounds to experience. Plus, did I mention "books?"

Needless to say, I won’t be blogging until at least Sunday. But I’ll give a report here when I get a chance. In the meantime, I’m going to have some fun.

No Reading Allowed

I've not been able to get around to visiting blogs much in the past few days but I should get back to a more normal schedule next week. Monday and Tuesday I put in eight hour writing days finishing up an article on Charles Darwin. Wednesday I spent most of the day in court or dealing with court related items. After nearly three hours in court, however, all they did was end up giving Josh yet another court date on November 2. That means another lost day of work for both of us, and no doubt more expense.

After the few times I've had to be in court I've seen enough to realize a few things. One, the courts are overloaded for two main reasons: 1) they deal with plenty of petty things that really should not be clogging up the courts at all, and 2) they are so inefficient that they end up seeing every person who comes through the court multiple times. Most of today's actions seem to be delaying tactics, putting things off until later.

I also came to another realization today. While courts are supposed to represent rationality they are, in fact, bastions of irrationality. They assert power in all its irrational forms. Here's a good illustration, although just a minor one. I'm sitting in the back of a large courtroom that has about fifty people in it. Most people are fidgeting. Almost everyone looks either sullen, bored, or terrified. The judge is way up at the front dealing with lawyers and one defendent at a time. The woman in front of me is sitting quietly next to her son reading a novel. The novel is down in her lap. The bailiff comes marching up and tells her she's not allowed to read in the courtroom. It could have been me. I had a book with me but hadn't started to read yet.

Can you imagine much of anything more asinine? Or irrational? I could see not wanting someone to play a Gameboy in the courtroom, or be talking on their cellphone, but what possible harm could occur from someone reading quietly in the back of the room? I think this, more than anything today, showed me how profoundly silly the justice system is in this country.

Anyway, now I've got to get ready for the my Louisiana Book Festival presentation this Saturday. No rest for the weary.
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Upcoming Week: Upcoming Month

I’ve got quite a week coming up, followed by quite a month after that. I hope I can get everything done. First, I’ll be guest blogging over at Novel Spaces this Friday, the 18th. I’ll be talking about a concept called GEMS, and I hope you’ll stop by.

Next, my first signing for Write With Fire is this Saturday, September 19, at the Causeway branch of the St. Tammany Library system. Everything starts at 10:00 in the morning, and I’ll probably talk on writing for half an hour to forty-five minutes, followed by a question and answer period and then a signing. Although the signing is primarily for Write With Fire, I’ll have copies of the Talera books and Cold in the Light available as well. I know that most of you aren’t in position to come, but come if you can and if not send me good wishes.

The address and phone number for that specific library branch is:

Causeway Branch Library
Address: 3457 Highway 190
Mandeville, LA 70471

Telephone: (985) 626-9779
Fax: (985) 626-9783

E-Mail: causeway@mail.sttammany.lib.la.us

As for actual writing, the novel, Razored Land, is at a complete standstill at 144 pages. That’s where the “month” comes in. I’ve got a 7,500 word story due at the end of September, a book review that I agreed to do at the same time, and a 1000 word story due by the first of October. Immediately after that last story I’ve got roughly three weeks to do a scientific article on Charles Darwin, all the while preparing for the Louisiana Book Festival on October 17

This, of course, is secondary to that pesky…“Day Job.” After all that is done I’m going to take a week off writing.

I want to also thank Erik Donald France for his great review of my book at Write With Fire, and for his follow-up commentary. Check it out. And thanks so much Erik for your support.

And to all my friends in Detroit, no offense, but Go Saints!.
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