Books Along the Teche Literary Festival filled with fun for the weekend

To experience great Southern writers and Louisiana music, food and art, hop in the car this weekend for the seventh annual Books Along the Teche Literary Festival in New Iberia, a beautiful town in South Louisiana. If there’s a better way for a book lover to spend a spring weekend, I sure don’t know what it is.

The home of famous literary character Dave Robicheaux, created by bestselling author James Lee Burke, New Iberia has loaded March 31-April 2 with everything from a talk by 2023 Great Southern Writer Lisa Wingate to a panel about Louisiana cookbooks to children’s activities, writing workshops and a bus tour of Robicheaux’s haunts and jaunts. There’s even a 5K race.

Some events are ticketed while others are free. Wingate will give the keynote presentation from 1 to 2:45 p.m. Saturday (April 1) with tickets available for $25. She will also speak to a sold-out VIP Book Club. Details about the schedule, tickets and more are available at https://booksalongthetecheliteraryfestival.com.

For Wingate, talking in South Louisiana about “The Book of Lost Friends,” her novel about a little-known piece of Louisiana history, is a full-circle moment that takes her back to places she visited for research. “Kind strangers are among the great joys of bringing books into the world. I’m always amazed by people’s willingness to jump in and share their own knowledge, experiences and thoughts. Louisiana folks are natural storytellers, and, yes, while I'm at the book festival, I'll be trolling for more stories.”

How the novel came to be

Inspiration for “The Book of Lost Friends” came from real-life “Lost Friends” ads, published from 1879 to 1900 by a Methodist newspaper in New Orleans, to help formerly enslaved families reunite. The ads landed at nearly 500 churches, 800 post offices and in the hands of more than 4,000 subscribers, spreading the word of those seeking family members and asking those whose searches had ended in success to report back so the news might encourage others. Today the ads are available in an online a database hosted by The Historic New Orleans Collection. (The database can be found at www.hnoc.org/database/lost-friends/)

If you can’t make it to the festival, treat yourself to reading “The Book of Lost Friends,” a rich dual time frame story with details about Louisiana that I never heard while growing up in the state. For information for book clubs, see www.lisawingate.com.

Winnie Griggs, others create Pink Pistol Sisterhood, inspired by Annie Oakley

If you like western romance novels, this creative project is for you: Eleven bestselling, award-winning authors, including Winnie Griggs of Plain Dealing, have created a sweet romance series that honors the influence Annie Oakley had over women during her reign as “Little Sure Shot.”

In the new series, a one-of-a-kind, pink-handled pistol is gifted to Annie Oakley and comes with a legend that promises whoever possesses it will find true love. Annie passes the gun on to one of her students and sets the whimsical journey in motion with “In Her Sights” by Texas author Karen Witemeyer.

“We're describing it as ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ meets ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,’” Griggs said. “There will be 11 books in the series, and they will span years from 1893 to the current day.”

The books will release on Amazon every 10 days beginning today (March 30), with the final book releasing July 10.

Griggs’s contribution, “Disarming His Heart,” is sixth in the series and releases on May 20. Set in 1911, the novel features a sharpshooter in a traveling show who is hiding her identity when she grows close to a preacher with a guilty past.

“One of the fun little things we're doing to promo the series is creating free magazines with vintage covers and behind-the-scenes tidbits, book previews and other freebies like recipes and puzzles,” Griggs said. For a free sample, seehttps://dl.bookfunnel.com/dkjqomyr9a.All the writers are members of Petticoats & Pistols, a blog for western romance: https://petticoatsandpistols.com/pink-pistol-series/.

In addition to her book in the series, Griggs, a prolific author and great writing teacher, also has written “Her Amish Patchwork Family,” which releases in April.

Columnist Judy Christie is the author of 18 books, including the fictional “Gone to Green” series and the nonfiction “Before and After: The Incredible Real-Life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children’s Home Society.” Co-authored with Lisa Wingate, it is the true sequel to Wingate’s bestselling novel “Before We Were Yours.” For more about Christie, see www.judychristie.com or follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/JudyChristieAuthor.

This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Books Along the Teche Literary Festival filled with fun for the weekend