Last week I was in New Orleans. As I have done on every trip there, I visited the Faulkner House. The society is located in a house in the French Quarter on Pirate’s Alley, that William Faulkner lived in while writing Soldier’s Pay. The ground floor hosts a hidden bookstore, of which the proprieter, Rosemary, likes to stock with almost all hardcovers. It’s a great bookstore and one way I like to support redevelopment in New Orleans, by spending my money there. But the Faulkner House is special to me beyond the house and store.
I credit Rosemary and the annual literary competition the Faulkner House sponsors with helping me publish The Sign for Drowning. In 2005 I submitted the novel to their competition and was thrilled to find myself on the finalists list, and shortly thereafter named 2nd runner-up for best novel that year. I was to attend the conference that November as an almost winner. Katrina and the devastating flooding occured that September. This was and continues to be a huge tragedy for the entire city and particularly the Lower 9th Ward. It was with great pleasure that the Faulkner House’s conference, Words and Music got back on it’s feet a year later and hosted a couple hundred writers, including myself. As I got ready to head to NO in November 06, I was in discussion with my now agent, Joelle Delbourgo- still waiting to hear if she would take me on as a new client. Rosemary, in addition to organizing dozens of workshops, performances, panels, lunches, dinners, hotel arrangments, etc. actually gets editors and agents to schedule meetings with attending writers- and read their work in advance! I, not so innocently, thought I should inform Joelle that I’d be meeting a few agents while in New Orleans, and it worked. She offered me her representation and I accepted- and publication shortly followed.
Rosemary’s and the Faulkner House’s generous support didn’t stop there either. Bret Lott was the judge of the novel category in 2005, and graciously consented to write a blurb for my novel. (This is truly it’s own international story of unlikely connections that I’ll have to blog about later.) I also met Julia Glass, a favorite writer of mine, whose novel Three Junes had been a Faulkner winner in previous years, at the conference in 2006. A year later when my ARC was ready, she agreed to read it, and wrote a blurb which I am honored to have received.
If you are a writer of novels, novellas, short stroies, poems, or essays, I highly recommend submitting your work to the William Wisdom- William Faulkner Literary Competition. And whether you do or not, visit New Orleans, visit Faulkner House, spend some money in this beautiful, historic American city, volunteer if you can, common ground, donate if you can, makeitright
You’ll be the richer for it.
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