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Walker Percy Weekend — It’s On!

What a great response I got to the post earlier this week saying that several of us in West Feliciana are thinking of starting a festival celebrating the life and work of the novelist Walker Percy. Many of you have written to me privately — I’ll write you back, promise; I was waiting to see […]

What a great response I got to the post earlier this week saying that several of us in West Feliciana are thinking of starting a festival celebrating the life and work of the novelist Walker Percy. Many of you have written to me privately — I’ll write you back, promise; I was waiting to see if I had news for you — and we organizers have been thrilled by the excitement. I’m pleased to report that we’ve decided to do this thing.

The first Walker Percy Weekend will be held in St. Francisville, Louisiana, on May 9-11, 2014. Percy’s birthday, not coincidentally, is Saturday May 10. Mark your calendars!

We are obviously in the early planning stages now, so anything and everything is possible. Please send your suggestions. We are going to do this through the Julius Freyhan Foundation, a local arts and community philanthropy that has 501(c)(3) status, meaning contributions in support of the Percy literary and cultural celebration will be tax-exempt.

As we envision it, the Walker Percy Weekend will not only feature lectures and discussions about Percy’s ideas and writing, but will showcase other events celebrating Southern culture in a Percyan (Percian?) key. There will surely be bourbon, music, storytelling, and camaraderie. I hope you’ll come. Please keep sending ideas — especially if you would like to participate as a speaker or performer, or your company would like to help sponsor the Weekend — to me at rod (at) amconmag.com. We will have our fest address soon, and I’ll keep you updated.

And, please send a link to this post to anyone you know who might be interested in building the Walker Percy Weekend up to a stimulating and pleasurable celebration of the great Louisiana novelist’s life and work.

UPDATE: A reader writes:

As both a displaced native of Livingston Parish and a Percy enthusiast, a Percy festival in St. Francisville would be a near regular homecoming for me.  One thing I would suggest is a That’s Despair Tent featuring Abita beer and boiled crawfish.

Perfect. Just perfect. I’ll write the Abita folks and see if they want to participate.

(N.B., the idea comes from this Percy quote: “I like to eat crawfish and drink beer. That’s despair?”)

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