Poetry events this week help kick off literary year
Book lovers, how about starting the year off talking poetry?
New Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin will introduce herself to Northwest Louisiana from 5 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday (Jan. 18), at the Shreveport Regional Arts Council “Faces of Shreveport Common” exhibition opening at Central Art Station, 801 Crockett St., with an artist talk at 6:30 p.m. As Louisiana’s literary ambassador for two years, the Poet Laureate travels the state encouraging fellow Louisianans to explore and engage with poetry.
In addition, the event showcases work by artists from SRAC’s entrepreneurial program ARTIST UP!, where paintings, mixed media, music and photography capture the faces of the “uncommon, creative, cultural community” of Shreveport Common, a unique area downtown. For more on this project, see https://www.shreveportcommon.com.
Pelegrin, writer-in-residence at Southeastern Louisiana University, is author of such works as “Our Lady of Bewilderment” (LSU Press 2022), “Waterlines” (LSU 2016)” and Hurricane Party” (U Akron 2011) and recipient of a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
The public is also invited to “A Conversation with Alison Pelegrin at 2:30 p.m. Friday (Jan. 19)—an informal discussion about writing poetry and the state of American poetry—in the main room of Magale Library at Centenary College, followed by refreshments and a poetry reading by Pelegrin at 3:45 p.m. On Saturday (Jan. 20) she will mentor invited area high school students participating in “Poetry Out Loud.” For more information on her visit, contact former Caddo Parish Poet Laureate Ashley Havird, amhavird@gmail.com.
The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities oversees the Louisiana Poet Laureate nomination process in partnership with the governor and sponsors public programming in libraries, museums, schools, community centers and other non-profit cultural institutions throughout the state. For more, see https://leh.org/our-work/special-initiatives/louisiana-poet-laureate/
Local novelist writes nonfiction book about divorce
What happens when the author of happily-ever-after romances gets divorced?
Shreveporter Betsy St. Amant Haddox, known for her more than 20 romance novels and novellas, shares her story in “Once Upon a Divorce,” released this week by Kregel Publications.
With a biblical perspective, she takes readers through the thorny path of figuring out life as a divorced mother, healing from loss and finding God to be faithful through it all, describing how “the end of a marriage isn't the end of the story.”
Now remarried, she said the idea of writing her own story had been in the back of her mind since “a writer's conference many moons ago. I felt the nudge from the Lord more recently, and it was intimidating… Because of its highly personal, vulnerable content, this book was truly an act of love and obedience,” she said. “…I now pray it reaches the hands of the women who need it.” For more, see www.BetsyStAmant.com.
Is your home supporting your health or sabotaging it
The first of a new year always draws me to one of my favorite genres, home design and decorating books with tips and inspiring photos.
I was delighted to receive word of a bonus chapter for “Wellness by Design: A Room-by-Room Guide to Optimizing Your Home for Health, Fitness and Happiness,” by former Shreveporter Jamie Gold, wellness design consultant. I first recommended this book when it came out three years ago, drawn to its ideas about how to make homes healthier and, thus, more appealing—creating healthy work-from-home space, study and fitness areas, improving indoor air quality, using smart home technology and even setting up grandparent-friendly guest rooms.
Still timely post-pandemic and with major natural disasters abounding, the book goes to the next level with Gold’s bonus chapter, offering advice on how to add resilience to your home and property against storms, wildfires and power outages; why multi-generational living can benefit your family–and tips for making it succeed for all; what new technologies like the metaverse and artificial intelligence mean for our homes and lives; and why noise reduction is crucial for healthier lives and home spaces–and how to achieve it.
Gold is an expert on the connections between where we live and our total well-being and writes and speaks nationally on the topic. “Wellness by Design,” published by Simon & Schuster, is available in print, e-book and audio versions. If you bought the book earlier, the new chapter is free via info you’ll find from the table of contents. For more, see www.JamieGold.net.
Another in the coffee-table house and home category jumped out at me from a library shelf this month: “Happy Starts at Home: Change Your Space, Transform Your Life” by Rebecca West, an engaging approach to an old topic. The book was so good that I wandered from its pages down the Internet rabbit hole of blog posts and even a guided meditation on how to refresh a home. What strikes me about her approach is that we benefit from stepping back and thinking what we need from our dwellings and why. If you want to freshen up home sweet home, take a look. For more, see https://www.happystartsathome.com. Be warned: Prepare to stay a while.
With 2024 all fresh and new, I also revisited an old decorating friend, “Restore, Recycle, Repurpose: Create a Beautiful Home” by Randy Florke with Nancy J. Becker. This Country Living book is full of suggestions and tons of great photos; each time I pick it up, I rearrange something for a new look, toss something or go on the hunt for a repurposed piece of furniture.
Shreveporter’s thriller lands on NYT bestseller list
Congratulations to Ashley Elston, whose debut thriller “First Lie Wins” was featured in a recent book lover column and who is now a New York Times bestselling author. The novel, picked by Reese Witherspoon for her January Book Club, shot onto the list at number five. Way to go, Ashley!
Columnist Judy Christie is the author of 18 books, including the nonfiction “Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society,” now in its fifth printing in trade paperback. For more, see www.judychristie.com.
This article originally appeared on Monroe News-Star: Poetry events this week help kick off literary year
