May 14, 2009

Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, New Orleans

Although the event hasn't started yet, I'm dipping into New Orleans culture and hospitality. A bike ride (16 miles!) around the city reveals how much of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina still remains, but how different the city looks from two years ago when I was last here. Then, it was a disaster area, and the expressions on people's faces said they were running out of hope their city might ever recover. Today, nearly four years after Katrina, it's looking like a vibrant community again.

This morning, Shane and I went out for a celebratory beignet (if you don't know what that is, think the best deep fried doughnuts in the world, covered in icing sugar and served smokin'), courtesy of BC writer Geneva St James, aka Lynn Krauss, whose wonderful "Made For You" was recently nominated as one of the top five comic lesbian novels of 2008.

On the way to meet Lynn I saw Montreal writer Peter Dube sitting in a cafe and, later, at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel where the festival takes place, I spotted multi-award winning author Ellen Hart stepping out of a cab.

I've got a panel coming up Saturday and on Sunday I'll be reading from the new Bradford Fairfax adventure, "Death In Key West", (which I haven't seen in print yet!) In between, I'm going to try to hear as many writers and attend as many Master Classes as I can.

Say hello if you're here!