Book events for Sept. 23

Women writers to read at BR Gallery

Women’s Week and BREC’s Baton Rouge Gallery Sundays@4 are working together to sponsor a reading and panel discussion by eight area female writers on the topic of “Women Writers on … Women’s Work,” 4-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30, at the Gallery, 1515 Dalrymple Drive.

Bracing to give birth, bending to serve, yielding, finding power in board rooms, from ironing shirts to saying “We’re not going to take this anymore,” women’s work is ever-evolving. Eight women writers reveal the forces that women channel to become who they are and reflect on the labor they’ve done — and have yet to do — in creating their worlds.

Each of the women will read a short original writing on a topic of her personal choice. This free event is one of the 185 activities of the 2012 Women! A Week-Long Celebration. Readers will include Amy Alexander, Renee Bacher, Claire Boudreaux Bateman, Jamey Hatley, Ava Leavell Haymon, Andrea Neighbours, Jacqueline Dee Parker and Maggie Heyn Richardson. Alexander and Hatley (from New Orleans) are new to the panel this year.

The Women’s Council of Greater Baton Rouge is celebrating its 11th anniversary of sponsoring a 10-day series of events across Baton Rouge to support women and women’s issues.

The theme for this year’s event — “Louisiana Women — 200 Years Strong!” — recognizes Louisiana’s Bicentennial. Women’s Week’s dates are Sept. 28-Oct. 7.

For more information on Women’s Week and to view the calendar of activities and the activity booklet online, go to the Women’s Council website, http://www.wcgbr.com. Women’s Week Activity Booklets, which list all the events, are available at no charge at BREC facilities, East Baton Rouge Parish Library branches, YMCA branches, Woman’s Hospital and Woman’s Fitness Center.

For more information, call [phone].

EBR Parish Library

Enlist in Starfleet and learn to fly a spaceship at Star Trek Day, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Jones Creek Regional branch, 6222 Jones Creek Road. The Baton Rouge Star Trek Fan Club, USS Corsair, will sign up new recruits and put them through their paces as they learn to pilot a spacecraft.

The club will be using an interactive program called Artemis, a Starship Bridge Simulator. Recruits will take the roles of different officers, just like the bridge crew of the USS Enterprise, while one person serves as captain. For more information, call [phone].

Parents and children ages 4 and older are invited to visit with the Baton Rouge Police K-9 Unit at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Bluebonnet Regional branch, 9200 Bluebonnet Blvd. Come and learn about the super-trained police dogs who keep the city safe. Cpl. Rodrick Woodard will explain how the police dogs track criminals, handle crowd control, sniff out illegal materials, search buildings and do other jobs human police officers can’t do as well as dogs can. Groups must register.

For more information about the program or to register, call [phone].

Book clubs:

•  Central Branch Book Club will meet at 11 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at the Central branch, 11260 Joor Road. Members will discuss Maine by J. Courtney Sullivan.
•  Books Into Movies Club will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, at Jones Creek Regional branch, 6222 Jones Creek Road. Members will discuss Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich (Movie title: 21).
•  The Book Buzz offers teens an opportunity to meet other teens who love books. They can let other teens know what stories they like and the ones they don’t. Teens are invited to come and chat about reading at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, at the Baker branch, 3501 Groom Road. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information or to register, call [phone].

Livingston Parish Library

Book club:

n South Branch Bookies will meet 5:30-6:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at the South branch, 23477 La. 444 in Livingston. Members will discuss Teacher Man by Frank McCourt.

Jefferson Parish Library

The Fiction Writers Group will meet 7-9 p.m. Monday, Sept. 24, at East Bank Regional branch, 4747 W. Napoleon Ave., Metairie. Guest author David Lummis will discuss Part 2 of The Coffee Shop Chronicles, and he’ll be accompanied by Chaba Lukash, the book’s publisher. The second part picks up almost exactly where Part 1 left off. It is the morning of Friday, Aug. 26, 2005, and B. Sammy Singleton is still reeling from the night before. Something is very wrong.

Sammy’s best friend, Catfish Beaucoeur, is missing, having left behind clues including a book of lynching photography and a disturbing handwritten poem. They will discuss the tricky concept of writing a novel which involves a fictional story while making references to real events and people.

The group will meet in the library’s Jefferson Room. Call [phone].

Sal Serio, curator of the Italian American Research Center at the East Bank Regional Library in Metairie, will sponsor a series of genealogy courses during September, November and October. All courses are free of charge and are open to the public. No registration is required. Courses will focus on the basics of genealogy and genealogical research. The next course will be 1-2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at East Bank Regional branch, 4747 W. Napoleon Ave., Metairie. Call [phone].

Book clubs:

•  Science Fiction and Fantasy Club will meet 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 26, at East Bank Regional branch, 4747 W. Napoleon Ave., Metairie. Members will discuss 1632 by Eric Flint. Call [phone].
•  Terrytown/Gretna Adult Fiction Book Club will meet 1:30-2:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Terrytown branch, 680 Heritage Ave., Terrytown. Members will discuss Rescue by Anita Shreve. Call [phone]

Orleans Parish Library

If you love to write and/or read poetry now is your time to shine. The Algiers Regional branch, 3014 Holiday Drive, will host an open reading at 5 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27. This program will allow adults to perform original or borrowed poetry, lyrics, monologues, speeches, etc.

No vulgarity of foul language, please. Performers must be 18 years old or older. Call [phone].

Book Club:

•  Guys Read Club, for young men ages 9-13 who aren’t afraid of a little reading, meets at 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Algiers Regional branch, 3014 Holiday Drive.

St. Tammany Parish Library

The Big Read activities continue with Dr. Susan Blalock conducting a series of book discussion meetings to talk about The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, inviting participation from group members. The discussion will be held 6-7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Causeway Branch Library, 3457 U.S. 190 in Mandeville. Seating is limited to 25 adults.

Book Clubs:

n The Lacombe Branch Bayou Book Markers Book Club will meet 6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Lacombe branch, 28027 U.S. 190 in Lacombe. Members will discuss American Thighs: Sweet Potato Queen’s Guide to Preserving Your Assets by Jill Conner Browne. Call [phone]

•  Lamplight Readers Book Club will meet 10:30 a.m.-noon Monday, Sept. 24, at the Causeway Branch, 3457 U.S. 190 in Mandeville. Members will discuss The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Call [phone]. Membership is free and open to all adults with an interest in reading and discussing books.
•  Pizza and Pages Teen Book Club will meet 6-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Covington branch, 310 W. 21st Ave. in Covington. Members will discuss The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. For teens ages 12-18 only. Call [phone].

WGA Meeting

Writers’ Guild of Acadiana will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25, at Barnes & Noble 5705 Johnston St, Lafayette. The WGA is an organization made up of local writers, published and unpublished, who meet on the last Tuesday of the month to share and gain knowledge in the craft of writing.

Beginners and veterans of the writing industry are all welcome. Call [phone].

Writers’ group

Westbank Barnes & Noble, 1601B West Bank Expressway in Harvey, is hosting a Writers’ Group from 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. This is a networking and critiquing forum for writers of all skill levels. Be prepared to read what you are working on, to take constructive criticism and to give it. Call [phone].

Live Prose Series

Room 220 will present an evening with T. Geronimo Johnson, author of the novel Hold It ‘til It Hurts, as part of its Live Prose series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept 27, at Melvin’s, 2112 St. Claude Ave. in New Orleans. Johnson is a New Orleans native who teaches writing at the University of California at Berkeley.

He will be joined by writers Khaled Al-Berry and Lucy Fricke. Al-Berry is an Egyptian novelist who is the author of Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise, an autobiographical account his life with a radical Islamist group. His 2010 novel An Oriental Dance was shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize.

Fricke, a German fiction writer, is the author of novels Thirst is Worse Than Homesickness and I Brought Friends. She has organized literary events for the Berlin International Poetry Festival, the Leipzig Book Fair, and directs the HAM.LIT festival in Hamburg.

Maple Street Book Shop (Bayou St. John) will be on-site selling books.

Pointe Coupee book

The Historic New Orleans Collection, 533 Royal St. in the French Quarter, will present a talk and book signing for New Roads and Old Rivers: Louisiana’s Historic Pointe Coupee Parish, a book which features photographs by Richard Sexton, text by Randy Harelson with Brian Costello.

The event will be 6:30-8 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27. This event is free and open to the public. Seating is limited; for reservations, call [phone] or email [e-mail].

For more information, visit http://www.hnoc.org.

Highlighting the natural and historical landscape of Pointe Coupee Parish, New Roads and Old Rivers: Louisiana’s Historic Pointe Couppe Parish features 200 elegant color photographs of the area by Richard Sexton.

Accompanying the images is the story of the parish and key events within its history, as told by author Randy Harelson with archivist and historian Brian Costello. Sexton, Harelson and Costello will be at the event.

Pointe Coupee is one of the oldest settlements in the Mississippi Valley, dating to the 1720s. The parish has preserved its Creole heritage over the years, leading to an abundance of historic homes and farms.

The photographs in New Roads and Old Rivers capture Native American mounds, waterways, agricultural fields and industries, slave cabins and plantation homes, family and civic celebrations, and some of the parish’s registered live oak trees.

The book also includes most of Pointe Coupee’s 70 surviving antebellum structures.

The book, which retails for $45, will be available for purchase at The Shop at The Collection during the event.

Signings

John Shelton Reed, author of Dixie Bohemia: A French Quarter Circle in the 1920s, will sign copies of his book, 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, at Garden District Book Shop, 2727 Prytania St. in New Orleans, and at 6 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, at Octavia Books, 513 Octavia St. in New Orleans.

Peter Mayeux, author of Dear Mr. Musemeche, will sign copies of his book at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at Westbank Barnes & Noble, 1601B West Bank Expressway in Harvey.

Items for book events were provided by Baton Rouge Women’s Council, East Baton Rouge Parish Library, Livingston Parish Library, Jefferson Parish Library, Orleans Parish Library, St. Tammany Parish Library, Writers Guild of Acadiana, Maple Street Book Shop and The Historic New Orleans Collection.