Hate to shake my cup again, but I just realized that today, the last day of 2013, is also the last day for tax-deductible giving. If you’ve already given to TAC, would you consider making a gift to help defray the costs of the Walker Percy Weekend literary festival we’re having in historic St. Francisville on June 6-8, 2014? There will be crawfish, beer, music, conversation, bourbon, a screening of the Percy documentary by director, and more. Noted academics Wilfred McClay and Peter Lawler will appear in panel discussions, and we’re adding more all the time. It’ll be a great time under the live oaks here in Percy’s Feliciana Parish, and a wonderful opportunity to help launch the first literary festival devoted to one of the great men of Southern culture and writing, and of 20th-century American Catholicism.

It’s going to be a cool event. We are, for example, hosting a panel about Percy’s thought about Jews, Catholics, and the modern world inside the beautifully restored Temple Sinai, which in the early 20th century was the center of religious life for the Jewish community of St. Francisville.

If you would like to make a tax-deductible 2013 donation to help with the festival, please write a check today to the Julius Freyhan Foundation, the 501(c)(3) arts and culture organization behind the festival. Be sure to put “Walker Percy Weekend” on the memo line. Mail your donation to the Foundation at P.O. Box 338, St. Francisville, LA 70775.  One of you generous readers sent a check for $1,000 the other day, in honor of the man whose writing helped lead you into the Catholic faith. That news absolutely delighted Ann Percy Moores, one of Walker and Bunt Percy’s daughters. I believe she’s going to come to the festival, too, or at least try.

UPDATE: Above, a clip from Win Riley’s marvelous documentary about Percy. Win will be on hand Friday night to screen his film, meet folks, and attend the Walker Percy Weekend’s opening crawfish boil.