If you have pre-purchased a ticket:

• If you have purchased a Weekend Panel Pass, Master Class ticket, Saturday Day Pass, Sunday Day Pass, Reading Series Pass, or walking tour ticket, report to the Registration/Information table at the Hotel Monteleone, Royal Salon A. You will be given your passes/tickets and should show them to the door attendant at the appropriate sessions.
• If you purchased a ticket to the walking tour on Friday, please meet in the lobby of the Hotel Monteleone 10 minutes before the tour begins.
• If you purchased tickets for the Book Launch Party/Fundraiser or Glitter with the Literati Party, your name will be on a guest list at the door.
• Seating is general admission to all events.

Please note that online sales will CLOSE on Tuesday, May 21 at noon (CST). 

To purchase tickets onsite during the Festival:

• The box office will be open from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. beginning Friday, May 24. It is located at the  Royal Salon A at the Hotel Monteleone. When registering onsite, you will receive a paper ticket to give to the door attendant at the session. 

• $500 VIP All-Access Pass to the 2014 Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival (March 19-23, 2014)
• All-Access Pass to 2014 Saints and Sinners
• A grab bag of books, tote bag, and Saints and Sinners t-shirt

Winner to be announced at our closing reception on Sunday, May 26.

We very much look forward to seeing you this week, and we truly appreciate your support of our 10th anniversary celebration.

Head’s up: the temps are rising and should be in the mid- to high 80s, so dress appropriately. And although there’s only a 20% chance of rain, it’s always a good idea to pack an umbrella.

Just a reminder, we’ll close online ticket sales Tuesday, May 21 at noon (CST). The box office will be open from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. beginning Friday, May 24. It is located at the  Royal Salon A at the Hotel Monteleone. When registering onsite, you will receive a paper ticket to give to the door attendant at the session. Please check our website for Festival news & updates.

It should be a jam-packed Memorial Day weekend with eccentric and colorful New Orleans characters. It’s sure to be a memorable time with great discussions, readings, and events that y’all will make special.

Come see Michael at the Poetry Panel: Intro to Bodybuilding (Saturday, May 25 at 1:00 p.m.) and the Diva Reading Panel (Saturday May 25 at 4:00 p.m.) at the 10th Anniversary Festival!

Can you remember the first time you wrote a poem? How did it begin?
My first “serious” poem was called “Cover Charge,” which is in my collection Cool Limbo. I wrote that while backpacking through Europe, at age 24 or 25, on a train in Italy. The poem was about my first experiences going to gay bars after I came out, how they often were so dark, almost as if lit to conceal identities, like back rooms. Being young and wanting so badly to make my first gay friends, it bothered me that many places seemed built to cruise more than to socialize and I wondered if that was residue from our history of being in the closet. The poem began with imagery of shoes — all kinds: boots, sneakers, loafers — as they were often more visible in the angled lights than faces were.

I can’t remember writing my first poem specifically. Though before my mother passed a few years ago, she found a report card from my second grade teacher praising my writing, as well as an award from the local library for a story telling contest. I don’t remember that contest but can remember loving writing in class, as far back as second grade. All through junior high and high school I wrote what I called lyrics, many of them narrative, mostly because I didn’t know a lot about poetry and hadn’t realized that was what I was writing.

Read more

Your poetry seems to keep humor close to its heart. We are often given a humorous image, or some kind of wordplay that entertains as much as it informs.
I grew up in a home where sarcasm (or humor) was a form of affection. I am a huge fan of comedy, especially female comics, and attend shows regularly. I think, as one of my favorite poets Edward Field put it at a reading once, wisdom is most easily imparted through humor. He was referring to his own work and to how Judaism teaches. I don’t think myself wise or religious at all. So it’s more of an automatic mode for me and a form of inspiration. It’s the way I see. I try to balance the poignant with the funny to avoid sentimentality, and just to entertain, too.

If you couldn’t be a writer, what would you do to support yourself?
I’d be a photographer, I think. I see my poems as portraits in words. I minored in photography as an undergrad and can see the influence it has had on my poetry.

That influence certainly shows in your latest book, Divining Divas. You’ve essentially edited an anthology of portraits, drawn by poets, of some of history’s most iconic divas.
Yes. Odes, if you will, to the divas. Originally, I collected poems AND essays at the same time for My Diva but immediately saw that they were separate books. The essays needed to be on their own as the poems broke their rhythm, and vice versa. The first anthology was so well recieved in reviews and at events (as well as being a Lambda Finalist), that it made sense to follow up with more of a good thing. Whereas My Diva had 65 essays, Divining Divas had room for 100 poems, and somehow even more diversity with additions to the roster like Oprah, Greta Garbo, Miss Piggy, Gertrude Stein, Frida Kahlo, Alice in Wonderland, Lady Gaga, even Jerri Blank (played by Amy Sedaris) of Strangers with Candy. There were more divas who needed their props and the poets needed to have their turn to do it.

Does writing get easier the longer you do it?
It depends. Some poems come easier and faster than others. I find it helpful to sit on a draft for a while, not looking at it for a couple days or weeks, then coming back to it to revise. Sharing poems with writer friends and workshopping are always helpful. I used to have to cut out a lot in drafts. So my poems would be there on the page and just needed editing. My MFA program helped me to realize that so I write more concisely now, even in drafts.

I finished a draft of my first novel recently, a YA novel. I enjoyed drafting it. Now that it is done and revised and I am about to send it off to agents and publishers, my concerns are more about commercialism and marketing … things I never had to bother worrying about in poetry.

We’ve lined up our who’s who of LGBT publishers, writers and readers, but we’re still looking for the real stars of the show: our volunteers! As a non-profit organization, we depend on our volunteers to help us ensure that the weekend’s festivities run smoothly. Without their generosity, we would not be able to pull it all off.

Please consider signing up for a volunteer slot; your helping hand will be invaluable to us. We’ll need:

• Ticket takers, site managers, and assistants for the panels, master classes, and special events

• Assistants at our box office staff/information desk/concessions

As a token of gratitude for your time and effort, we will offer you a free weekend panel pass ($150 value), which allows access to events featuring Dorothy Allison, Bernard Cooper, Greg Herren, Andrew Holleran, Justin Torres, Summer Wood, and many more.

All we ask is that you commit to working a shift of 4-5 hours during the Festival. And please spread the word on our behalf!

Sign yourself up for a slot on our online sign-up form where you will “order” the time slot during which you will volunteer. If there is an event you’d especially like to see, please DO NOT sign up to volunteer during that shift, as we cannot guarantee the venue where you will be assigned.

Once you sign up, your shift is your responsibility. Check in 10 minutes before your shift begins in the Royal Salon A at the Hotel Monteleone.

Feel free to contact us if you have any questions. We look forward to working alongside you during the weekend of the Festival!

There’s still time to buy tickets online. Online tickets will be available until Tuesday, May 21 at noon (CST). If you don’t purchase tickets before the Festival, you can still get them at our box office at the Hotel Monteleone, Royal Salon A during the Festival, Friday through Sunday, 9 AM to 5 PM. All tickets are available for sale at this location, provided that the event has not already sold out.

See you soon!

Guidelines:

• Entries will be accepted from 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 23^rd until noon on Sunday, May 26^th.
• You may enter as many photos as you wish.
• All photos must be emailed to SASFestival@gmail.com. Photos may be attached or set in the body of the email.
• Photos must be in .JPG format. No other format will be accepted.
• The email subject line must be “#SASFest13 Photo Contest.”
• The body of the email must include your name, contact information, and a brief caption of the photo.
• No sexually explicit or otherwise inappropriate photos will be accepted.
• Photos must be taken at the 2013 Saints and Sinners Literary Festival.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Good luck!