This week on The Reading Life: Two of this year’s guests at the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival — Mary Badham, who portrayed Scout in the 1962 film version of To Kill a Mockingbird, and novelist Cynthia Bond, author of Ruby, the first selection for the Oprah Book Club 2.0.
**Lagniappe Audio**
Susan Larson's essay on the Tenneesee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival:
I’d like to take a moment to wish the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival a happy birthday. Thirty years is an amazing milestone, and I have been there for 28 of them. My years as a board member are behind me now, so it’s time to offer some applause.
The Festival was founded by a grass roots group – including Peggy and Errol Laborde, Maureen and Bill Detweiler and Southern literary expert Kenneth Holditch – and as I remember the story, the seed came over a lunch at Mandina’s where many good New Orleans things happen. Over time, the Festival grew, gradually expanding offerings of drama, panel discussions, master classes, musical and food events, a scholars’ conference and the Saints and Sinners Literary Festival. The weekend always ends with the signature Stell-Off, the Stanley and Stella shouting contest. For booklovers, the Festival is a sign of spring, recognizing great established talent, and presenting the new.
Over the years, the festival has hosted some amazing writers and theatrical figures. The great Ernest Gaines appeared there the year he turned 60, enjoying his success with A Lesson Before Dying. Robert Olen Butler and Richard Ford, fresh from their Pulitzer wins, graced the Le Petit Stage. John Berendt’s master class was a revelation, as was Gail Godwin’s. Many of Tennessee Williams’ friends and acquaintances – and yes, his brother Dakin -- gathered to remember personal experiences, though there are fewer of those folks now. One of my treasured souvenirs of the Fest is a signed copy of the Franklin Mint edition of Williams’ plays my husband found at the Festival and gave me for my birthday. Julian hadn’t been to an earlier panel with Dotson Rader, who explained how Tennessee plied all his friends with liquor and got them to aid in the autographing chores of that book. But that only made my copy more precious to me. After all this time, I remember the best thing I ever saw at the Festival – a conversation with poet Yusef Komunyakaa and Henry Lacey, a reading with musical accompaniment, a testament to long friendship and love of literature.
The Festival has presented playwrights who are leading lights in theater – John Guare, whose generous spirit is a delight to experience; Terrance McNally, Marsha Norman, John Patrick Shanley, Martin Sherman. And such celebrities as Eli Wallach and Anne Jackson, Alec Baldwin, Elizabeth Ashley, Kim Hunter. I’ll never forget picking Zoe Caldwell up at the airport and meeting Marian Seldes. Chance meetings can change your life.
So what am I looking forward to this year? Reconnecting with John Lahr, the New Yorker drama critic, whose new book Joy Ride, is a total pleasure. I can’t wait to see Dorothy Allison – our long friendship made possible by years of Festival visits. But equally tantalizing are Festival newcomers – Cynthia Bond, whose Ruby is a revelation, Alexander Chee, who’s forging a brilliant career with Edinburgh and Queen of the Night, Claire Vaye Watkins, author of Battleborn and Gold Fame Citrus. And Margo Orlando Littrell, who’s the winner of the UNO Press Laboratory Award for Each Vagabond by Name.
And as kitchy as the Stanley and Stella Shouting Contest may be, there is something wonderful at its heart. A woman in a slip on a balcony, a man in a t-shirt below, shouting up at her. Or in typical New Orleans fashion, gender mixing in any permutation. But there it is, people who’ve chosen to love a literary moment and live it out themselves.
