The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University is proud to partner with Tulane University Libraries for the following programming at the 2024 festival.
The Living Library: The Power of Your Story
Friday, March 15th, 2024, 2:00pm – 5:00pm
Pocket Park, The Lavin-Bernick Center
Tulane University Libraries invites you to engage with living stories and perspectives at the 2024 New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University. Delve beyond the conventional book covers and immerse yourself in the living narratives of individuals who defy categorization. Inspired by the groundbreaking Living Library concept, this event presents a curated collection of human "books," ranging from activists and entrepreneurs to survivors and scholars. Each participant embodies a compelling story waiting to be explored, offering a firsthand account of resilience, passion, and triumph. Join us from 2:00 pm till 5:00 pm in Pocket Park behind the LBC building to unlock the pages of the human experience through the Living Library's immersive storytelling platform.
Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text
Opening reception March 15, 2024, 10:00am – 4:00pm
Tulane University Special Collections 2nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Jones Hall
Refreshments will be served. Activities include coloring, bookmark making, and swag to take home.
When asked to describe their favorite book, many readers will mention a beloved author, preferred genre, or an enjoyable narrative trope. They express their love of books because of the comfort with a familiar everyday object that is easily accessed by reading, scrolling, listening to, or running fingers against Braille code. Despite using our beloved books all the time, we seldom pause to consider the book as an object.
Featuring more than 50 book objects ranging in date from c. 1300 to 2024, Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text aims to celebrate the book’s overlooked physical elements. Visitors are invited to consider the entire book as an object of significance—its paper, inked shapes, typography, illustrations, and binding. Using recent acquisitions and works seldom on view from the rare book collections of Tulane University Special Collections, the Newcomb Art Museum, and private collections, this exhibition will give visitors a firsthand look at bookmaking materials and the varieties of books they can create. Examples of the materials and instruments employed to create, print, and bind books throughout history will be on display.
All book lovers are invited to join us as we examine the unique facets that determine a book's singular identity so that we may “raise the veil” on the story beyond the text.
Curated by Kure Croker, Agnieszka Czeblakow, Faye Daigle, and Samantha Schafer, Pages Unveiled: Journey into the Book Beyond Text opens March 15, 2024 and is on view through June 14, 2024 at the Tulane University Special Collections 2nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s Uptown campus. Hours are 10am–4pm Monday-Friday. Admission is free and open to the public.
For more information about the exhibit, contact Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach, Tulane University Special Collections at (504) 247-1836 or kevinw@tulane.edu.
From Bookshelf to Box Office: The Enduring Influence of Terry McMillan
Moderated by: Jacinta Saffold
Friday, March 15th, 2:00 PM - 2:45 PM
United Airlines Stage | Dixon Hall
Terry McMillan was born and raised in Port Huron, Michigan, and discovered her love of literature while shelving books at the local library. She burst onto the literary scene in 1987 with her wildly acclaimed New York Times bestseller Mama, which won the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction award in 1986 and an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1987. Terry’s signature humor, wisdom, and warmth made Waiting to Exhale, A Day Late and A Dollar Short, The Interruption of Everything, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Getting to Happy, Disappearing Acts , Who Asked You? and I Almost Forgot About You all New York Times Best Sellers. Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back were made into award winning major motion pictures that proved huge at the box office, and Disappearing Acts and A Day Late and A Dollar Short were adapted into successful made-for-TV movies. Terry was awarded an Essence Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. Beloved by her fans, Terry’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Now Terry is back with It’s Not All Downhill From Here, the story of one woman’s plan to shake herself out of her midlife rut, and maybe, in reinventing herself and embracing the person she wants to be, find a second chance at love.
