This year’s Words & Music festival takes place November 19-22 and show producers promise an exciting and rewarding experience for all who attend! Take a look at what folks are saying about New Orlean’s incredible Words & Music: A Literary Arts Festival:
FROM ATTENDEES
“I wanted to let you know how wonderful it was to attend the Words and Music literary festival was last year. My novel was a finalist in the category of novel-in-progress. Because of the competition, I got an offer from MacAdam/Cage for publication at the end of this year. As I was a finalist and was invited to participate in Words & Music, I met and was signed by my agent, Deborah Grosvenor, and my editor, Pat Walsh, as a result of the writers’ conference last year. I really owe it all to the Faulkner-Wisdom competition and to Words & Music.” — Caroline Kellems, runner-up BEST NOVEL-IN-PROGRESS, 2008, author of The Coffee Diary, MacAdam/Cage November 2009
“This conference is the stuff of dreams. Upon getting out the cab at the Hotel Monteleone, I felt I had entered into a dream landscape. For the next three days, I was e ither eating the best food of my life, listening to one of the most interesting people of my life, drinking the best drink of my life, or getting the best writing advice of my life. By the time the cab hauled my hung-over body to the airport, I had a prize, a host of material for another book, and a terrific agent who soon sold my first one. I love Words & Music. I love Rosemary James and my agent. I love the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and New Orleans!” — Peter Neofotis, Winner BEST NOVELLA, 2007, author of Concord, Virginia St. Martin’s, June 2009
“Never mind that Words & Music is held in the grand Hotel Monteleone in one of the most inspiring cities on earth, this conference will fill your fertile mind to the brimming. Each day the hotel ballrooms bustle with informative, lively panels about various aspects of writing. Novelists, short story writers, essayists, poets, screenwriters – everyone will come away motivated, enriched. Networking lunches and cocktail hours in historic restaurants around New Orleans give unpublished writers the chance to hobnob with industry greats and celebrity authors. Literary chitchats tend to bubble up everywhere – the hotel elevator, glittering lobby, rooftop pool, the famous Carousel Bar. You’ll be steeped in ideas like a crawfish in etouffee. The one-on-one agent/editor critiques are a special treat. The gala dinner and dancing on the final night were memorable. I haven’t had so much fun, learned so much and made so many professional connections and writerly friends since the last time I attended.” – Roz Unruh, runner-up BEST NOVEL, 2008
“Words & Music is by far the most informative and most enjoyable writers’ conference available today. The balance it strikes between the aesthetics of authoring and the practicalities of getting published is perfect pitch. It’s an annual event that, in the end, epitomizes everything to be cherished about the city that hosts it: Words & Music is educational, rollicking good fun, friendly, and rich in history…. A ‘bon temps’ no aspiring writer can afford to miss.” – Kirk Curnutt, winner BEST ESSAY, 2008
“What a wonderful and peculiar weekend in New Orleans. Such a pleasure to meet everyone and realize there are sharp and erudite people on both sides of the publishing divide. I suppose that should be amended to a triangulation of sorts when you include the scriveners in the mix! The panels were extremely helpful to a newcomer like me and I came away from the conference full of ideas and insights on the world of publishing and writing.” – James Claffey, MFA student LSU
FROM AGENTS & EDITORS
“What is remarkable about Words & Music is the level of interaction. Here you have a mix of attendees who range from National Book Award winners to absolute novices, and–at least from where I sat–there were almost no cliques or class divides. When I watched people interacting through the conference, and when I looked around at the tables at dinner Saturday night and lunch Sunday, I was struck by the mix. In my career I have edited two Faulkner prize-winning novels (Stewart O’Nan’s SNOW ANGELS and Leslie Lehr Spirson’s 66 LAPS)–I can’t think of another writers’ conference that produces better writing.” – Bruce Tracy, Executive Editor – Random House, Editor-in-Chief – Villard/Random House
“At Words & Music, a focus on real feedback, dialogue, and practical, inspiring discussion (as well as uncommonly terrific dining) sets this conference leagues apart.” – Carole DeSanti, Vice-President, Editor-at-Large, Viking/Penguin
“At no other conference in the country does the city play such an important role in the occasion. After attending rousing lectures, readings, and group and one-and-one sessions, attendees can step right out the doors into the French Quarter and experience it with eyes anew, reminded of all the reasons they are drawn to write, read, and otherwise participate in the literary world. Three days are enough to breathe new life into any writer’s soul. A more lively and interesting group of writers could not be found above or below the Mason-Dixon. Faculty and attendees arrive eager to share their work, and leave transformed by the zing of information, inspiration, and conversation that the conference inspires.” – Brandi Bowles, Agent – Howard Morhaim Literary Agency
“Having attended writers’ conferences in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Texas, Oregon, and California, I hope it carries some weight when I assert that the Words & Music conference in New Orleans is far & away the best I’ve ever been to (and now go to every year they’ll have me). The city alone would have won my heart. But add in the high level of talent assembled in the Grand Hotel Monteleone (built in 1886, haunt for William Faulkner, Tennessee Williams, & where Truman Capote said he was born) and the incredible esprit de corps, Words & Music is the event to which I most look forward each Fall (and I’m including Christmas).” — Michael Murphy, Agent – Max & Co. A Literary Agency and Social Club
FROM AUTHORS
In every way—the delight and historical resonance of the venue, the savvy and charm of the organizers, the variety and quality of the attendees, the motivating intensity of the arstistic inspiration, the career-changing potential of the professional contacts, the joy of literary collegiality for everyone in attendance—in every way possible, Words & Music is one of the finest conferences in the world. It is a permanent part of my life as a writer, and I am deeply grateful for that.” – Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize winner, author of Alleys of Eden, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, Fair Warning, Severance, among others
“No one knows how to throw a party like New Orleanians, and no one knows how to convene a meeting of literary minds like the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society. Rejuvenating to seasoned authors and tremendously nurturing to those who are just starting out, Words & Music is a festival, an homage, a think tank, a celebration of books all rolled into one. It is a touchstone in my life as a writer.” — Julia Glass, Winner 2002 National Book Award for Three Junes
“When Jill McCorkle chose Snow Angels for the novel prize, it changed my life. I went from being an unemployed aspiring writer tapping away in my unheated attic to drinking champagne in a limousine and bowing my head to receive a gold medal from Richard Ford in a cathedral. I’ve gotten a lot of breaks, but this was one of the biggest. Now going to Words & Music is a highlight of my year, a chance to reunite and meet new friends and talk books and writing in one of my favorite cities. Thank you, Joe and Rosemary.” — Stewart O’Nan, author of Snow Angels, Everyday People, Songs of the Missing, among others (Winner BEST NOVEL 1994)
“What New Orleans is to jazz and cuisine, the Words & Music Festival is to literary bons temps in America. You talk, you read, you learn, you laugh and eat and drink and dance, you discover books and writers, you make friends. They’ve ‘got heaven right here on earth….way down yonder in New Orleans.’ It’s the best of the best and I wouldn’t miss it.” – Michael Malone, author of Handling Sin, The Killing Club, The Last Noel, Four Corners of the Sky, among others
We all look forward to seeing YOU in New Orleans this November!
The National “Best Book” Award 2009 named Morgana Press of New Orleans’ offbeat title Hearsay from Heaven and Hades: New Orleans Secrets of Sinners and Saints by author TJ Fisher as this year’s Poetry winner. The unconventional and dark-tinged work received top honors in the “Poetry: General” category.
