including Kenyon Review, Prairie
Schooner, RHINO, TriQuarterly,
December Magazine, and Greensboro
Review.
Randy P.
Roussel is
a practicing
attorney and
a life-long
resident of the
coastal lands
between New Orleans and Baton
Rouge. His short stories are inspired
by the history of these coastal lands,
and his photography captures their
vibrant landscapes. His books of
photography and essays include
Views Along the Meander, Meandering
Through the Red Stick Region, Heavy
Air & Sweet Cane, and Alluvial.
Maurice
Carlos Ruffin
has been a
recipient
of an Iowa
Review Award
in fiction and
a winner of the William Faulkner–
William Wisdom Creative Writing
Competition for Novel-in-Progress.
His work has appeared in Virginia
Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon
Review, The Massachusetts Review, and
Unfathomable City: A New Orleans
Atlas. A native of New Orleans,
Ruffin is a graduate of the University
of New Orleans Creative Writing
Workshop and a member of the
Peauxdunque Writers Alliance.
Annette
Saddik,
Ph.D., is
Professor
of English
and Theatre
at the City
University of New York. She has
published four books, most recently
Tennessee Williams and the Theatre of
Excess: The Strange, The Crazed, The
Queer (Cambridge University Press,
2015), and Tennessee Williams: The
Traveling Companion and Other Plays
(New Directions, 2008). She sits on
the board of several academic journals
and serves as a judge for the Lucille
Lortel Theater Awards in New York.
Tom Sancton
is a New
Orleans
native and
former Paris
bureau chief
for TIME
magazine. He is the author of Song
For My Fathers (2006), an acclaimed
memoir of his jazz apprenticeship
in 1960’s New Orleans. His most
recent book, The Bettencourt Affair
(2017), recounts the real-life story of
the world’s richest woman, L’Oréal
heiress Liliane Bettencourt, and the
younger man she showered with
hundreds of millions until her jealous
daughter took him to court for
elder abuse. The story was recently
optioned as a TV mini-series.
Kerstin
Schmidt is
Professor
of English
and Chair
of American
Studies at the
Catholic University of Eichstaett-
Ingolstadt/Germany. In over 10
monographs/edited volumes and over
30 essays, she has written on 19th
and 20th-century American literature
and culture, focusing on American
drama and theater, race and diaspora
studies, theories of space/place
as well as on media theory and
documentary photography. Together
with colleagues from France and
the US, she is the editor of the
interdisciplinary review journal
Kritikon Litterarum.
Henry I.
Schvey is a
professor of
drama and
comparative
literature at
Washington
University in St. Louis. He is a
director, playwright, and memoirist,
as well as a scholar of modern drama.
Schvey has published extensively on
Williams, including essays on D.H.
Lawrence and Tennessee Williams
(Tennessee Williams Annual Review,
2018), and on Tennessee Williams
in New Orleans, in New Orleans:
The Literary History. His new book
on Tennessee Williams and his
relationship to St. Louis will appear
later in 2020.
Janet Shea
has played
Blanche,
Princess,
Amanda,
Flo Goforth,
and Mrs.
Holly in Williams’ plays, and has
also performed in “Thank You Kind
Spirit” and “The Lady of Larkspur
Lotion” at Moscow University.
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NEW ORLEANS
ORLEANS LITERARY
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She has received multiple Big Easy
Awards, Storer Boone Awards, and
Marquee Awards, including two
Lifetime Achievement Awards.
Shea performs in classical dramas,
comedies, and musicals, and has
enjoyed a long, rewarding teaching
career. Her students have made her
proud with their successful pursuits
in the arts. She is also a busy dialect
coach and is currently teaching Voice
and Movement at Loyola University.
Raynel
Shepard has
deep family
roots in New
Orleans. Her
repertoire
includes jazz
standards, show tunes, and cabaret.
She divides her time between New
Orleans and Boston. In New Orleans,
she has appeared at Little Gem Saloon,
Cafe Istanbul, Hammond Cultural
Arts Center, Old Point Bar, and Buffa’s
Backroom. When in Boston, she
performs at Ryles, Third Life Studio,
The Lilypad, Chianti, and New
School. She is thrilled to bring her
Fran Landesman tribute to the Festival
this year.
John Warner
Smith is
the current
Louisiana
State Poet
Laureate.
Smith has
published four collections of poetry:
Muhammad’s Mountain, Spirits
of the Gods, Soul Be A Witness,
and A Mandala of Hands. His
fifth collection, Our Shut Eyes, is
forthcoming in 2020. Smith was the
winner of the 2019 Linda Hodge
Bromberg Literary Award. A Cave
Canem Fellow, he earned his MFA at
the University of New Orleans. He
lives in Baton Rouge.
Katy
Simpson
Smith was
born and
raised in
Jackson,
Mississippi.
She is the author of We Have Raised
All of You: Motherhood in the South,
1750-1835, and the novels The Story
of Land and Sea and Free Men. Her
novel The Everlasting will be published
in March 2020. She currently serves as
the Eudora Welty Chair for Southern
Literature at Millsaps College.
Susan Fitch
Spillman,
Ph.D., is
a graduate
of Tulane
University
and is the
William Arceneaux Endowed
Professor of French at Xavier
University of Louisiana. She is the
author of Vive la Louisiane, un
état pas comme tous les autres, and
Compère Lapin, Voyageur, a three-
act play published by the Éditions
Tintamarre. She received a National
Endowment for the Humanities
grant to develop a multimedia
community study, The Garífuna: A
Vibrant Culture Speaks, documenting
an Afro-Hispanic cultural group in
New Orleans.
Erica
Spindler is
the New York
Times and
International
Chart
bestselling
author of 35 novels and three
eNovellas. Known across the globe as
“The Master of Addictive Suspense”
and “Queen of the romantic thriller,”
she has won a Kiss of Death award,
the Daphne du Maurier award of
excellence, and is a four-time Rita
Award finalist. Erica lives just outside
of New Orleans with her husband and
the constant companionship of Molly,
the dynamic doodle. Her latest novel is
The Look-Alike, and she is putting the
finishing touches on her next novel,
tentatively titled The Good Daughter.
Sheryl St.
Germain has
published six
poetry books,
three essay
collections,
and co-edited
two anthologies. Her latest memoir,
Fifty Miles, appeared in January 2020
with Etruscan Press. Originally from
New Orleans, she lives in Pittsburgh
where she is co-founder of the Words
Without Walls Program. In addition
to numerous awards for her work, she
was the recipient of the 2018 Louisiana
Writer Award, presented annually by
the Louisiana Center for the Book.
Jacob Storms
received the
United Solo
Award for
his original
one-man