My Southern Odyssey presented by Richard Grant 

Richard, an Englishman, will describe the personal journey of learning and discovery that followed his decision to buy an old farmhouse in the Mississippi Delta. He will discuss writing about the South from an outsider’s perspective and why he became so intrigued by Natchez, Mississippi—a fascination that resulted in his most recent book, The Deepest South of All.

Satire, Self-Knowledge, and the Speculative South  presented by Dr. Jennifer Frey 

Love in the Ruins is a dystopian, science fiction novel about a latter-day Thomas More, one who is not a saint but a self-described bad Catholic—an immoral believer who doesn’t love rightly and doesn’t care to change his ways.  Like all of Percy’s novels, it grapples with the problem of sin, evil, and self-knowledge. Unlike most of his novels, Love in the Ruins is a work of satire, in which irony, humor, wit and fantasy come together to create a speculative vision of the south that has proven to be eerily prescient. This talk will explore the main themes of the novel and argue that satire was the best mode for Percy to explore the philosophical and theological themes that preoccupied him throughout his long career. 

12:00 – 1:30  - Book Club Lunch .   Choose from 1 of 3 topics , pick up a lunch and join us .  \

(Boxed lunches will be available for pre-purchase and delivered outside of the venue)  

-          Education Building – Mt Carmel Church -  11485 Ferdinand Street, St Francisville

Topics are:

-          Herman Melville (essay originally published in The Criterion also included in Signposts in a Strange Land ) Moderated by Bryan Giemza

-          Love in the Ruins – Moderated by Jennifer Frey

-          The Last Gentleman – Moderated by Brannon Costello  

Join Olivia Clare Friedman, M.O. Walsh, and Brannon Costello forr a lively and illuminating panel discussion on teaching and writing about the speculative South. How do writers draw upon the conventions of literary and popular genres such as dystopian fiction, magical realism, postapocalyptic fiction, and superhero comics to imagine alternative futures for the South? Is there a tradition of speculative southern fiction?  And how can speculating about the South’s future help us to see its present more clearly?

A Conspiracy of Dunces: Mystery and Majesty in a Writer's Life presented by Bryan Giemza

Bryan's talk will investigate a longstanding rumor, hinted at in Walker Percy’s archival papers, that he did not merely receive the manuscript of A Confederacy of Dunces, but wrote it himself. In exploring this mystery, and Percy’s place among Louisiana writers and events, Giemza unfolds his evolving relationship to his work over the course of a writing life and affirms the meaning-making power of literature in times of unanticipated crisis

Held at the West Feliciana Courthouse - 11578 Ferdinand Street, St Francisville

Randy Boyagoda is the author of the novels “Original Prin” and “Dante’s Indiana”

Randy Boyagoda is Professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he has held a series of senior administrative positions including Principal of St. Michael’s College where he also held the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts and Letters. Boyagoda is a novelist and literary critic with a particular interest in religion, satire, and family life. He is author of six books, including four novels, a biography of Fr. Richard John Neuhaus and, most recently “Dante’s Indiana” and “Original Prin.” He contributes essays, reviews and opinions to publications including The Atlantic, the New York Times, First Things, Commonweal, and The Financial Times (UK), regularly appears on CBC Radio, and hosts a literary podcast for the Toronto Public Library. 

Held at Jackson Hall next to Grace Episcopal Church - 11621 Ferdinand Street, St Francisville

Presented by Dave Duty

During this presentation, Dave Duty will discuss his personal history with Dr. Walker Percy – which includes over a decade of correspondence and a life-changing afternoon spent with WP that Bunt Percy referred to often as the Day of the Phantom from the River.  He will also review and discuss some of the ideas and theories that Walker wrestled with during his non-fiction writing.  Dave firmly believes that Walker Percy is ripe for a Walter Isaacson biography for two major reasons (1) Walter knew WP personally and (2) like Franklin, Jobs, Einstein, and Da Vinci – Walker Percy stood squarely at the intersection of art and science and that WP’s science has not received the depth and breadth of understanding of which it so richly deserves.

Held at The West Feliciana Courthouse - 11578 Ferdinand Street, St Francisville

me and location of presentation TBAPresented by Michael Kobre, Dana Professor of English, Queens University of Charlotte

In all of our discussions of Walker Percy’s philosophical ideas and moral convictions, we sometimes lose sight of his art as a novelist. But if we page through either of the collections of his interviews we’ll find almost as many references to writers like John Updike, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Ralph Ellison, and Kurt Vonnegut as we will to philosophers like Kierkegaard, Sartre, and Marcel. In this talk, I’ll examine Percy’s stature and achievement as a novelist working in the landscape of post-World War II American fiction. We’ll celebrate Percy’s art as a storyteller, a powerfully acute observer, and a dazzling linguistic stylist.

Held at Jackson Hall next to Grace Episcopal Church - 11621 Ferdinand Street, St Francisville

Presented by Read Schuchardt, Associate Professor of Communication, Wheaton College.

Walker Percy’s “The Moviegoer” is about 30-year old Binx Bolling, a Southern New Orleans stock broker, trapped in the malaise of his life, aided and abetted in both comfort and misery by the movies.  J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye” is about 17-year old Holden Caulfield, a Yankee New York prep school drop-out, surrounded by fakes and phonies whom he despises. The two novels couldn’t be more different. But upon closer inspection, some remarkable synchronicities occur, providing a theory that is, if not derived by Percy’s authorial intention, at least significantly coincidental enough, and at enough key points both fictional and non-fictional, to bear further investigation.  Read’s talk will help you see both novels in a new light – that of each other – and both authors in new ways, both of which bear the hallmarks of being products of the media ecosystems of their times, and when viewed sequentially, Percy’s novel can be shown to demonstrate one possible future for Holden Caulfield’s metaphysical awakening when he’s all grown up…

TOM KEY is an Atlanta theatre director and playwright who adapted Walker Percy's The Moviegoer and Lost In The Cosmos for the stage. He serves as Artistic Director of downtown Atlanta’s celebrated Theatrical Outfit He will speak on the meaning of Lost In The Cosmos for contemporary American culture, and the role of art -- especially theatre -- in building community in a fragmenting society.

“Recreating comic and dramatic excerpts from his hit stage adaptations in downtown Atlanta’s Theatrical Outfit of Lost in the Cosmos and The Moviegoer, Tom Key reveals what profound community transaction happens when language is center stage, and especially when its Walker Percy’s.  This theatrical art form invites us to recognize what we have in common is far greater than what divides us and that truly we all belong to one another.”   

American culture is in crisis. Many people feel a loss of meaning, purpose, and community. In his 2013 New York Times bestselling memoir 'The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming,' Rod Dreher wrote about the strengths of rural and smalltown culture in West Feliciana Parish, as embodied by his late sister and the community that accompanied her in her terminal struggle with cancer. What lessons can America learn from the way the people of West Feliciana live? Rod Dreher explores them with New York Times columnist David Brooks, whose new book is "The Second Mountain: The Quest For A Moral Life," and J.D. Vance, bestselling author of "Hillbilly Elegy," his memoir of growing up in Appalachian poverty, which will soon be a feature film directed by Ron Howard.

Jessica Hooten Wilson (Associate Professor of Creative Writing, John Brown University and author of Reading Walker Percy's Novels (LSU Press May 2018) makes her Fourth festival appearance, this time presenting a Master Class on Percy's "Lost in the Cosmos" 

  Walter Isaacson will speak on Walker Percy’s philosophy as reflected in his novels.  That includes the idea of “the search” that’s central to The Moviegoer.  Walter is an award-winning historian and the author of many best-selling books, including biographies of Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger, and most recently Leonardo DaVinci. Walter Isaacson has also written the book American Sketches in which Isaacson reflects on how he became a writer, the lessons he learned from various people he met, and the challenges he sees for journalism in the digital age. He offers loving tributes to his hometown of New Orleans, which both before and after Hurricane Katrina offered many of the ingredients for a creative culture, and to the Louisiana novelist Walker Percy, who was an early mentor.

Slip into Walker Percy Weekend with a casual conversation about building community in America, featuring Anne Snyder and other guests.

Memories of the life-long friendship and correspondence of Walker Percy and Shelby Foote will be shared during a light-hearted conversation between two of their children—Mary Pratt Percy Lobdell and Huger Foote.

Lawrence Rhu, Emeritus Professor of English, the University of South Carolina, will explore the long friendship between Walker Percy and famed Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, with whom he shared a passion for the search for life's meaning. Rhu is the curator of the letters of Coles and Percy and is currently writing a book, entitled "Friendship and the Life of Writing: Walker Percy and Robert Coles."

Bill Wilson (University of Virginia) is at work on a book which will study writer and historian Shelby Foote's  book "The Civil War:A Narrative" . He will speak on the meaning of Foote's life and work, and of the historian's lifelong friendship with Walker Percy.

Jessica Hooten Wilson (Associate Professor of Creative Writing, John Brown University) makes her THIRD festival appearance, this time presenting her new book Reading Walker Percy's Novels (LSU Press May 2018). Jessica will lead a lunchtime, book club-style discussion of Percy's The Last Gentleman. 

* A gourmet, brown bag picnic lunch will be available to Book Club attendees at additional cost. Box lunch reservations must be made before Friday, June 1 at 6 pm. Sign up at registration or click [HERE] if you want in on this. 

Collin Messer (Grove City College) will analyze the fragmenting of American life through the lens of Percy's novel Love In The Ruins. The alienation Percy wrote about in his 1971 novel has intensified in recent years. How shall we -- liberals, conservatives, and everybody else -- live as "wayfarers" in our American Babylon without losing sight of the goodness of God in the everyday?