On October 31 Dianne and I made our way to the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. Our son Amos appeared on a panel talking about his most recent book, The Battle of Danziger Bridge, that weaves fiction around real events in New Orleans. We had also attended the 2023 festival where he appeared on two panels in support of his novel Petrochemical Nocturne and his 2018 collection of stories, Nobody Knows How It Got This Good. We were also at the 2018 festival shortly after his first book was published. His books can be purchased on Amazon, from Livingston Press and other vendors. Although fiction, Amos' books are filled with history.
Two other authors appeared with Amos on the panel, which was moderated by Maurice Carlos Ruffin. Christopher Louis Romaguera is a Cuban-American writer and translator. He discussed his translation of a work by Mexican novelist Herman Lara Zavala. This work combines fact and fiction to tell the story of Efrain "El Charras" Calderon Lara, a young union leader and student activist kidnapped and murdered in the Yucatan in spring 1974.
John Warner Smith was Poet Laureate of Louisiana 2019-2021 and has published five collections of poetry with a sixth due in 2027. However, his current book covers events in the small north Louisiana plantation town of Mer Rouge in the summer 1922. Two white men who had criticized the KKK disappeared. Smith's work traces the subsequent investigations by federal and state authorities.
A look through the festival program turned up three more writers with Alabama ties. Rodney Jones is the author of eleven books of poetry, was born and grew up near Falkville and is a UA graduate. Emily Carpenter has published six suspense novels and also writes a romance series as Isla Moore. She was born and grew up in Birmingham and is an Auburn University graduate. Author and editor Tracy Carr has a master's degree from UA.
As usual, the festival was a one-day binge of books, book discussion panels, food trucks, and exhibitors of all sorts. For a day at least, literary culture was alive and well in Baton Rouge.
Amos' panel is somewhere on this grid, which is only half of the day's events.
Our panelists John, Christopher, Amos and moderator Maurice. The discussion and audience questions were lively.
