An Invitation to the 2007 Louisiana Book Festival

A couple of years before Katrina, Louisiana started their Book Festival, held over two days in and around the lovely old state capitol building in Baton Rouge. Now, Louisiana may be backward and crooked and just plain crazy, but this is something they do right. It’s educational and entertaining, with great food and music as well as great speakers, and most of it’s free! (The food’s not free, but it’s reasonable, and the music and the Saturday speakers are free.)

The 2005 Book Festival had to be canceled because of Katrina, but they managed to pull off the 2006 Festival, and this year’s event should be better than ever. I’ll be doing another panel with Laura Joh Rolland on Saturday, 3 November. I’ll also be teaching a six-hour “Wordshop” on Friday, 2 November, on Writing Genre Fiction. (Like the food, the Friday Wordshops are not free, but they’re not expensive.) I’m excited to be able to do it, and it should be great fun.

So if you have the time, come on down to Baton Rouge the first weekend in November, eat some gumbo, sip some wine, listen to some blues and jazz, and mingle with thousands of book-loving people. Who could resist?