Ava Haymon, featured author at the festival and current Louisiana Poet Laureate,
animatedly reads one of her poems to attendees at the Literary Arts Festival. 
The Lion's Roar / Elizabeth Brown

Many Louisiana residents, former and current Southeastern instructors and local award-winning authors collaborated for panel discussions, master classes and workshops on film, writing and more at the second annual Literary Arts Festival. The festival “Celebrating the Written Word” was hosted by the Hammond Regional Arts Center on Saturday March 7 and took place through the downtown area. 

Leading up to the festival, the first “Famous Author’s Cocktail Trail” was held at multiple local businesses from March 5-7. This event featured local businesses such as Tope La Restaurant, Brady’s Restaurant, Your Mom’s Restaurant & Bar and more. Each business featured a cocktail of their choice that was made famous by American authors from the past. One example was the Mojito as made famous by Earnest Hemingway. 

Also prior to the festival was the second annual writing contest “So You Think You Can Write.” According the HRAC website, “This artwork-based creative writing project demonstrates the powerful impact that art can have on a writers’ imagination while giving contestants a focus for their writing.” In the contest, contestants ranging from sixth to eighth graders to college students and adults submitted a storylines in the form of poetry, essays or short stories based on 12 images created by local artists and from local collections that were selected by HRAC. The winners were announced during the awards ceremony at the end of the festival. 

According to Mike Kilgore, director of the HRAC, they decided to start the festival last year so they could bring the literary arts to the region, and due to its success and great selection of authors, HRAC decided to continue the festival for its second year. Kilgore also mentioned that the main differences between the first and second years were master classes, cocktail trails, more book signings and signed books for sale at the center.  

“This is something we will try to do every year where a nationally known or well-known author is present,” said Kilgore.

To begin the festival, which featured over 20 local authors and the Louisiana Poet Laureate Ava Leavell Haymon, historian and biographer Nigel Hamilton gave a speech called “Biography and the Big Screen,” which examined the role of biography in relation to film.  

Following Hamilton’s speech, there were many more speeches, workshops and master classes that occurred throughout the day, some of which included “Novels and Short Stories” by Dayne Sherman, a Southeastern library science professor and critically-acclaimed novelist; “The Children’s Hour: Writing for Young People” by Pamela Cali Bankston and Wendy Duhe Woods, two novelists; and “Writing a Novel” by Robin Wells, author of 16 critically-acclaimed and award winning novels and former Southeastern instructor. 

During Wells’ panel, she discussed the process of writing a novel, which includes: pre-writing, writing, revising, and submitting. She also included her personal advice throughout the process.  

To those aspiring to be published authors, she advised to “get started, keep going and put yourself out there” and to “take it seriously [by] making a commitment.” 

Following Wells’ panel, Ava Haymon lead an interactive workshop titled “Poetry” where she discussed and demonstrated her step-by-step creative process of writing. 

To close the festival, Ava Haymon, Louisiana Poet Laureate and featured author of the festival, gave a reading on some of her poetry. Haymon said, “I was very honored and happy about it,” when asked how she felt to be the featured author for the festival. To those aspiring to be authors, she advised to “remember what you are, read and keep a journal and make that journal your practice.” 

Following Haymon’s reading, awards for the annual writing contest “So You Think You Can Write” were handed out, followed by a reception.

“I feel like it’s a good way to test your strengths and I think a lot of people should try the festival,” said Christopher Comeaux, first place 6-8 grade short story winner and Covington local.

For more information on the Literary Arts Festival, visit the HRAC in downtown Hammond or visit their website hammondarts.org.