Tennessee Williams Literary Festival
March 26-30, 2008

Until 1948 a streetcar line passed through the Faubourg Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans and ended in the section now known as Bywater. Only a year earlier, the name on the front of the streetcar caught the eye of a young playwright living in the city, and he gave its name to one of the most famous stage productions ever written.

The streetcar was named “Desire” and the playwright was Thomas Lanier Williams, known to the world as Tennessee Williams. Over the years he has become one of the best-known, most widely read playwrights in American history. Williams called New Orleans home for many years and he wrote some of his best-known works while residing in the French Quarter, including “A Streetcar Named Desire.” In homage to him, in 1986, three years after his death, the Tennessee Williams Festival was founded.

This year’s festival, the 22nd, will again be held at various locations in the French Quarter from March 26 through March 30. The 2008 TennFest will feature such popular authors as Hal Crowther, Dan Menaker, Tift Merritt and Lee Smith. Other featured authors and news media personalities will be announced as the date draws closer.

Crowther’s current collection of essays, Gather at the River, is a National Book Award nominee. Menaker is the author of the 1998 novel, The Treatment, as well as two short-story collections, and was a longtime editor at The New Yorker. He is now Vice President and Senior Literary Editor at Random House. Merritt is best known for her intricate, Grammy-nominated song lyrics. Smith is the author of ten novels and three collections of short stories. Her novel, The Last Girls, was a New York Times bestseller as well as a co-winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award.

This year’s festival will again feature readings of Williams’ works, plus one-act play competitions and readings of new works by known and up-and-coming playwrights. Other sessions will cover a myriad of other writing-related topics. There will be special dinners, book fairs, cocktail hours and walking tours past Williams’ former homes. But the high point of the festival (in decibels, that is) the “Stella!” shouting contest, in which male contestants compete to duplicate Marlin Brando’s famous plaintive cry to his wife as Stanley Kowalski in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”

In the past, TennFest has played host to numerous published authors, media stars, literary agents, publishing company representatives, and others with a literary bent, including Pulitzer and other major literary prize winners. Past festivals have included such literary luminaries as Rick Bragg, Robert Olen Butler, Ellen Gilchrist, Douglas Brinkley, Wally Lamb, Sue Grafton, Michael Lewis, the late David Halberstam and others. Film and media stars attracted to past festivals include George Plimpton, Rex Reed, Dick Cavett and his wife/actress Carrie Nye, Patricia Neal, Tab Hunter, John Goodman, Stephanie Zimbalist, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson and Kim Hunter who played Stella Kowalski in both the original Broadway version of “Streetcar” and the 1951 movie of the same name. Williams’ brother, Dakin Williams, a poet in his own right, was an honored guest at some of the earliest festivals.

Tickets may be purchased in advance online at www.tennesseewilliams.net using Mastercard or Visa, or by calling the Festival box office at 504-581-1144. The box office, in the lobby of the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, 717 Orleans (corner of Bourbon and Orleans), is open from noon until 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Special packages and group rates are available. For more information check out the schedule on the festival website, www.tennesseewilliams.net.