AuthorViews Video Podcast

Our newest addition to The Katrina Tapes series is the lovely New Orleans poet, Lee Meitzen Grue. In this two-minute video, Lee is embraced by the lush, tropical foliage of the courtyard at the Royal Orleans Hotel during the 2006 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. Lee shares her evacuation story, fighting back tears as she describes the loss of a beloved pet after the hurricane. With Katrina, "Everybody lost something," Lee says, but she is determined to remain optimistic. Watch the video to see what Lee Grue considers the positive impacts of the storm.

Dorothy Allison joins us on a bright and sunny New Orleans day in late March 2006 at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival. Despite the cheery weather, Allison shares a grim tale. In this 2-minute clip, Allison recounts a meeting with a reader who related all too well to the main character in her novel, Bastard Out of Carolina. The book, which is a fictional account of violence and incest in a Southern working class family, is a national bestseller and was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1992.

Here is the first installment from our visit to Charlottesville, Virginia, in March 2006 for the Virginia Festival of the Book (VAbook.org) In this 2-minute clip, author Joel Agee describes his attempts to delve into the mindset of his younger brother, who was plagued with debilitating mental illness. The resulting book, In the House of My Fear, details Agee's own breakdown, and his eventual breakthrough, fixed against the background of the sex-and-drugs era of 1960s America. In this clip, Agee's austere presence and somber recollection of the events that lead to this memoir give way to musings on the juxtaposition of art and life.

We conclude our series, "The Katrina Tapes," with this extraordinary video of University of New Orleans professor and anthropologist, Martha Ward, discussing her book, Voodoo Queen: The Spirited Lives of Marie Laveau. Laveau was a Creole hairdresser who worked in the French Quarter and lived in nearby Faubourg Marigny. She and her daughter, also named Marie Laveau, were renowned Voodooists. Both these women were sought out as healers and advisors and held prominent places in New Orleans society. In this 2-minute clip, Ward, wearing colors as wild as her book's cover, talks about her research, including attending Voodoo ceremonies and touring St. Louis Cemetery #1. How much of Laveau is fact or fiction? Watch.

Abram Himelstein is a teacher in the New Orleans Public School System -- or was -- there is not much left of the System these days. He's also an organizer for the New Orleans Bookfair and the co-author, with Jamie Schweser, of Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing. In this 2-minute video clip, Himelstein describes the traditional route of the self-published author: throw the books in the trunk of a car, get on the road, try to sell enough copies to cover gas and meals. From this modest beginning, Tales of a Punk Rock Nothing has gone to over 20,000 copies in print. About 5000 of those copies turned back into pulp when Hurricane Katrina added thousands of gallons of water to the storage facility holding the books. This is Himelstein's second video for AuthorViews. Be sure to check out his video for The Neighborhood Story Project -- an amazing program for helping students become publishers while capturing the history of their neighborhoods.

Robb Roemershauser is the proprietor of the Above Ground Zine Library -- a zine retailer and distributor in New Orleans. He is also owner of a legendary zine collection. I know Robb from his work at the Iron Rail Book Collective at 511 Marigny Street in New Orleans where Above Ground is now open most days from 1-7 p.m. Robb has been at every planning meeting for the New Orleans Bookfair I've attended. His contributions have helped make the Bookfair possible. In this 2-minute video, Robb eventually spits out what happened to his Lakeview home -- and zine collection -- when a break in the nearby 17th Street Canal sent a wall of water crashing through the neighborhood. You don't want to miss this video.

Kyle Bravo, proprietor of Hot Iron Press, was the man who organized the 2005 New Orleans Bookfair. Little did he know when he accepted that position that the Bookfair would arrive on the heals of the greatest natural disaster ever to hit New Orleans. Hot Iron Press is a quality letterpress shop -- or was, anyway -- it's hard to do quality letterpress under 5 feet of water. Kyle and partner Jennie LeBlanc just celebrated the release of their new book, "Making Stuff and Doing Things (The How 2 Book)" from Microcosm Press. It's a collection based on the popular "How 2 Zine" and it's only $10 cheap so you should buy it and help them rebuild from Katrina! Kyle Bravo and Jennie LeBlanc are still in Denton, Texas, but hopeful of returning to New Orleans in the near future. In this 2-minute video, Kyle talks a little about the Bookfair and a little more about what makes New Orleans so special. Just listen.

Dr. Barbara Rath came to the U.S. from Europe. She travelled to several cities in the states before landing in New Orleans. Like many Europeans, she felt more at home in this former French and Spanish colony than elsewhere in the states. Dr. Rath works at Covenant House, a nonprofit group that shelters, feeds, and educates runaways and at-risk teens. When Katrina came, she was caught unprepared. In the aftermath, she sees patients at a free clinic while helping New Orleans heal its wounds. We are grateful to have helpers like Dr. Rath here, and we are hopeful that New Orleans will continue to be a refuge for Europeans looking for a place that feels like home.

If you live hereabout, maybe you heard 'bout the Boocoo Man -- a big green fella, friendly, lives back'o'town, carries a snake? Maybe you never seen him? You gonna see him now, cher. We captured the Boocoo Man at the New Orleans Bookfair. He says he was "thoroughly blessed" by Katrina, who ran 30 feet of water through his shack out back. Musta blowed him into the big city, 'cause here he is, creatin' a scene at the Bookfair. Boocoo Man is also known as B.D. Blanchard -- children's book author, artist, illustrator, storyteller, performer, and player of some of the strangest musical instruments you never seen. We promised you two green people this week. Here's the second one. Don't miss the Boocoo Man. B.D. and Boocoo -- Welcome to AuthorViews!

Photographer and installation artist Elizabeth Underwood lost everything to hurricane Katrina except her body. Taken were her home, her job, and her life's work. In today's 2-minute video, Underwood looks like a schoolgirl with Post Katrina Stress Disorder: A stack of subversive texts tilted on her hip, the distracted look in her eyes of someone who only hours earlier got to see the pulp that used to be her property. We were lucky to have Elizabeth Underwood in New Orleans for the last decade. We will be lucky to get her back again, soon. Her web site, which is loaded with Underwood's unsettling photography ("an exploration of the trauma survivor"), indicates Underwood will return to the Crescent City in the winter of 2006 "as part of a fine-arts fellowship to explore the psychological and aesthetic effects of the region's devastation." You can start with your own video, Ms. Underwood. So should you, dear reader. Elizabeth Underwood -- Welcome to AuthorViews!

Here at AuthorViews we like to say "We're All Free People of Color." Today's video proves it. Chef Katrina is one of our green people (we'll have another one later this week). She illustrates the sort of local color you'll find at the New Orleans Bookfair, the annual Halloween gathering of counterculture authors, performance artists, and ne'er-do-wells. The 2005 Bookfair took place at the Zeitgeist Theater / Barrister's Gallery on Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. in the Central City district of New Orleans. We found Chef Katrina wandering the aisles, mostly spent of her powers, yet still ladeling toxic gumbo for all to remember her by. Chef Katrina -- Welcome to AuthorViews!

I can't imagine a better way to start The Katrina Tapes here at AuthorViews than with longtime New Orleans Bookfair organizer Abram Himelstein. Abram has been involved with the Bookfair since it began in 2001. More importantly, he is co-director of the Neighborhood Story Project (NSP), one of the most ingenious and successful high school writing programs I have ever encountered. Through the NSP, high school students use interviews and photography to collect the stories of their neighborhoods. Words and art are then edited, polished, and assembled into quality paperback books. The five books that have resulted from this project are extraordinary. They have become bestsellers in local bookstores. Student authors have found themselves on the receiving end of media attention (NPR) and $1000 advances against book royalties. What a fabulous way to teach writing, journalism, publishing, and business -- all while capturing the oral history of a community. Our 2-minute video with Abram was shot live at the 2005 New Orleans Bookfair and contains ambient trumpet as a stamp of authenticity. I think you'll enjoy this video and I hope you'll check out the Neighborhood Story Project web site for great inspiration. Abram Himelstein -- Welcome to AuthorViews!

Beginning next week, AuthorViews will start releasing "The Katrina Tapes" -- a series of interviews filmed at the New Orleans Bookfair in October, 2005. The Bookfair was the first major post-K cultural event in the city, coming just 2 weeks after the mandatory evacuation was lifted and residents were invited back home (or invited back homeless, as the case often was). This is a startling collection of first-hand impressions and we look forward to bringing them to you. We're starting with this very short video of St. Augustine Church -- the oldest African-American Catholic Church in America. In the aftermath of Katrina, the Archdiocese of New Orleans decided to close "Saint Aug" -- a decision that has met with an outpouring of local, national, and international support for this landmark church. This video marks another landmark: AuthorViews intern David Kaplan will be graduating from Tulane University next week. David was our first digital video intern. In the past few months he has sampled every aspect of filmmaking for the web. He did the camera work on this piece, along with much of the editing and titling. Our video of Saint Aug is really more of a snapshot than a story. Several of us here at the New Orleans office have been involved in the campaign to save Saint Aug. We are pleased to note that the Archdiocese has given Saint Aug a reprieve to increase membership and save the church. We'll keep you posted. You can also enjoy a radio documentary on Saint Augustine produced by AuthorViews' own George Ingmire at neworleansnarratives.com. Saint Augustine -- Welcome to AuthorViews!

Today we are pleased to bring you Ina Hillebrandt's latest 2-minute video. Last time, Ina told us about her book, "Pawprints." This time, Ina shares two editions of Stories from the Heart with us. These stories are excerpts from memoirs written for classes that Ina teaches through her web site or in person. You can find more information about Ina Hillebrandt's literacy programs, writing clubs, and memoir-writing clubs at her web site, InasPawprints.com. But first, take a look at this short clip about Stories from the Heart. Ina Hillebrandt -- Welcome Back to AuthorViews!

We are very pleased to release an expanded installation at AuthorViews today for Molly Bruce "Brucie" Jacobs' new book, Secret Girl, a memoir from St. Martin's Press. Secret Girl tells how Brucie Jacobs came to discover she had a "mentally retarded" sister who had been institutionalized since birth, and how Brucie came to know this sister and bond with her in the last years of her secret sister's life. In addition to Brucie's 2-minute video, shot after closing time at the Virginia Festival of the Book, St. Martin's has given us permission to run an excerpt from the book -- the scene in which Brucie first hears about the Secret Girl. Brucie Jacobs -- Welcome to AuthorViews!