Visitors leave New Orleans believing they could write a book - if they had the time. If New Orleans gives anything, it gives time. In another place, it’s easier to forget that the strength of a story is the author’s ability to admit ignorance; to see the author relaxing into the certainty that we are all unique, but part of a common search. New Orleans reminds us we cannot know it all. Ply timeless plot with a city of the same quality, and you have a New Orleans story. As averse as literature is to trends, New Orleans is more so. Time stands still. Creation happens here.

Some people do stay. They write well and famously about our local habits, beliefs, flaws, and hopes. They try to define this place, knowing they will never be the last to say what the bend in the river reminds them of, how the rain falls, or why the night leads them to transgressions.

John Ed Bradley sees the city through the history of its art and the diverse mix of culture and race that produced it.

Anne Rice sees it through vampires.

Before them, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Walker Percy and John Kennedy Toole threw their hats in the ring, presenting New Orleans to the world in short stories and novels. Pulitzer Prize winning poet Robert Penn Warren saw enough in a stroll down a French Quarter street for his poem, “Folly on Royal Street Before the Raw Face of God.”

“…in New Orleans once,

In French Town, spring,

Off the Gulf without storm warnings out,

Burst, like a hurricane of

Camellias, sperm, cat-squalls, fish-smells, and the old

Pain of fulfillment-that-is-not-fulfillment, so

Down Royal Street – Sunday and the street

Blank as my bank account

With two checks bounced – we –

C. and M. and I, every

Man-jack skunk-drunk –

Came.”

Stellar nonfiction writers have claimed New Orleans as home. Douglas Brinkley, Walter Isaacson, Nicholas Lemann, Michael Lewis and Cokie Roberts have all drawn national acclaim. Chronicling everything from the life of Henry Ford to relationships between mothers and daughters, the more factual vehicle of writing rolls swiftly here.

Writers who visit New Orleans with a story in mind have tremendous options for indulging their imagination and improving their craft. The literary visitor to New Orleans has a place to land.

Throughout the year, literary calendars boast poetry and fiction readings every week by local writers. Well-known national writers appear as well. How could they resist? Uptown, the Maple Leaf Bar reading series is debatably the longest running in the south. Tulane and Xavier Universities, and New Orleans Center for Creative Arts - to name a few - are academic venues for hearing good writing read aloud. Independent bookstores such as Faulkner House, The Garden District Book Shop, Beaucoup Books, and Maple Street Book Shop are scattered throughout New Orleans neighborhoods from the French Quarter to Uptown, and have hosted the finest writers living in America and abroad.

Writers of every background, stature, and aspiration convene in New Orleans throughout the year at our various festivals. The Tennessee Williams Festival, held every spring, offers modern revivals of classic titles such as The Glass Menagerie and Orpheus Descending, workshops for budding playwrights, and panels of respected writers and artists who celebrate Williams’ life and work.

The year ends with a tribute to William Faulkner - Words and Music: A Literary Feast in New Orleans. Visit Faulkner House in Pirate’s Alley, and imagine the great one himself pacing the floor in the apartment above, writing his novel Soldier’s Pay. Then, immerse yourself in the world of contemporary writers, musicians and chefs by attending panels, workshops, and culinary events.

These festivals built on the momentum of the New Orleans Writers Conference, sponsored by NOMCVB. The resurrection of this conference is scheduled for 2005. The largest of its kind in this city at its inception, it promises to showcase all that is literary in New Orleans. Visit www.neworleanscvb.com to find contacts and dates for this and other literary events in New Orleans.