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To hear organizer Molly Bolden tell it, the celebrity authors get more out of Acadiana’s preeminent writers’ conference than the attendees. To hear Pulitzer Prize-winner and best-selling author Rick Bragg tell it, she’s probably right.
The Ninth Annual Jambalaya Writers’ Conference, held March 31 at the Terrebonne Parish Main Library, boasts a grandiose lineup: Bragg headlines a handful of New York Times best-selling authors, a former Louisiana poet laureate, local talent like John Doucet and Chris Cenac, book editors and writers’ agents.
“Louisiana is kind of a home away from home,” Bragg, a north Alabama native, said. “Quite frankly, it does not take a lot of prodding to get me back to Louisiana. Any excuse I can find to go and eat some catfish coubion or an oyster po-boy, any excuse I can find, I’m there.”
Bolden, owner of Bent Pages, has networked with authors nationwide for 25 years. She insisted, as Bragg alluded to, that the visiting writers legitimately enjoy the area’s food and laid-back lifestyle.
The speakers are treated to a dinner at Melvyn’s Friday night and a crawfish/shrimp/crab boil once the conference is wrapped up Saturday evening, two languid affairs that recurring visitors have come to look forward to.
“(Melvyn) lets us have our dinner on the porch,” Bolden said. “We get to watch the boats come up and down (the Intracoastal Waterway), and it’s just very relaxing and very different for them than some of the other conferences, where it’s just, ‘Go, go, go,’ and all they really want you to do is do your work and then leave. We’re not like that.”
The impressions have paid off. Heather Graham, one of the NYT bestsellers and a prolific romance writer, is a repeat speaker year after year. The Florida native pays her own travel tab each year, Bolden stressed.
Bragg, who will make his first appearance, said he’d heard of the conference through the “numerous grapevines that every writer, especially a Southern writer, is plugged in to.”
Authors throughout the nation have been intrigued with Houma’s conference since its first year, Bolden said. The bookstore owner added that she’s had to delay “big-name authors” until the next year because the slate was already full. The writers who have made the trip typically write about the experience in some fashion, whether it’s on their blogs, stationary or email.
This year’s group is as diverse as it as talented. Mary Kay Andrews is a NYT bestselling mystery novelist; Eileen Dreyer, a suspense writer, has also been on the NYT bestseller’s list; Jack Bedell and Darrell Borque are Louisiana poets, the latter was appointed the state’s poet laureate for 2009-10; Caroline Starr Rose is a children’s author who attended the Jambalaya Conference before she published her first novel; H.D. Kirkpatrick is a forensic psychologist; Gini Koch writes science fiction; David Middleton is a naturalist poet; the list goes on.
Two editors, one of whom with Mira Books, signed up to offer writers tips on how to present and sell their books and themselves. Cherry Weiner, a literary agent, is on the list to provide similar advice. Local author Damon Stentz, who recently self-published “The Kraken Slayer,” joins a panel to discuss the dos and don’ts of that printing option.
Still, Bragg is the year’s top draw. The Alabama native worked his way from newspaper to newspaper until he landed at The New York Times, where he won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1996.
He’s most known for best-selling books “All Over But the Shoutin’,” and “Ava’s Man,” deep-reaching autobiographies that detail the lives of his parents and grandparents living impoverished in the south.
Bragg didn’t run from his poor upbringing; in fact, he credits the circumstances of his youth for his story-telling talent.
“I grew up, I think as many southerners do, I grew up at the knee of some of the best storytellers on the planet,” he said. “My people are from the foothills of the Appalachians, in north Alabama and north Georgia. Those people just know how to tell a story.
“I’ve said before that you could hear the change rattling in the pocket of the deputy as he would chase my uncles down a dirt road. They could tell a story that would make you hear that.”
It wasn’t always a life filled with accolade for the man who continues to write and who is now paid handsomely for his novels and national writing gigs. Aside from the love of storytelling, he said, it was the opportunity to tell the “working-class” man’s story that motivated him to write.
After following that path, the 52-year-old author is beloved at a level few people can attain.
“More than anything, the people seem to care about the books (I’ve written),” Bragg said. “Not just meaning that they’ll spend $25 for one, but they seem to care about them, and that might just be the best thing that’s ever going to happen to you.
“That’s why these festivals are so appealing to writers, because you’re going to get to talk to the people who give a damn about your work. What’s better than that?”
– editor@gumboguide.com
