I chose not to lead the way or be the focus of intent yet here I reside, all on display for all to see as I repent I cannot be a perfect spirit as long as I am bound in sin I hence feel I’m deemed unfit for a fight I can’t, alone, win I pray with passion to see a promising path of grace where my people can live free and our holy father, embrace Give me strength not to fall on grievous acts against you help me hear my lord’s next call and know your words, alone, are true I follow where you lead my heart I give myself to absorb your love and from evil, set myself apart I patiently await your guidance from above

Is my skin too dark for this job? Do I have the right smile for this gig? Am I the right height for this show? Is my hair too coarse for that hat?   My body, my eyes Imperfection I despise These questions, these lies I’m all caught in compromise   Should I change up this stanza? Don’t bring attention to the art, fool Wait, am I a boy caught in beauty? No, you’re a girl caught in brawn   The voices from my pen speak Many of them care what you think Both friends and foes, I seek I hope I have what it takes not to sink    Do they see my pretty insecurities? Should I ask them what’s my worth? My insides brought outside for auction I want to hold my breath, but can I?   My cab to tomorrow has arrived I’m not sure I can pay the fare On life, I don’t think I’ve thrived But do you really even care?

 

  Purchase here: https:// https://marsandpanbooks.com/store/the-lovers-universe                                                                              The Lovers Trilogy Book 1 Summary: Lovable loner Casey Isaac thinks romance isn’t for him. Not since extraordinary events left him with supernormal powers and a great deal of trauma. But when Oscar Kenzari looks at him, he can’t help but change his mind. As Divinators, Casey and Oscar have used their psychic powers to defend humanity from sentient, extradimensional storms for one hundred years. But a storm more powerful than any before is brewing. MaalenKun , prince of the maelstrom, conqueror of countless realities, plans to turn the tables by infecting Casey’s mind. MaalenKun is not the only...

  Nick Perere reads his poem, “Sonnet No. 47,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

Sam Harty reads her poem, "Scream on Paper," for the Louisiana Words Tour at George's Place in BatonRouge, LA.

Purchase here:  https:// marsandpanbooks.com/store/p/ the-st-charles-bible Summary Sixteen-year-old Ree Osterberg is drawn into the fading grandeur—and dark secrets—of his grandmother Margarethe’s ancestral home on New Orleans’ famous St. Charles Avenue. According to family legend, Emperor Napoleon himself entrusted her ancestors with a priceless treasure hidden somewhere within Maison de l’Ange. And only Margarethe’s tyrannical father Henri Delacoeur II knows where. When the cruel patriarch dies under mysterious circumstances while celebrating his hundredth birthday, Ree believes the worst of the Delacoeur legacy has finally ended. But Henri’s final act is one last cruelty: he leaves Margarethe nothing, willing the crumbling mansion she has lived in for forty years to a rival niece. With eviction looming, Ree vows to help the grandmother who has proven his only ally in his struggles to understand his own emerging identity as a young gay man in a world that feels increasingly hosti...

 

Please support Siniša Jančan's novel, Silence in the Quiet of Peace . Info for the novel and how to purchase is here: https://tinyurl.com/bdfadx6w/ Summary For years, Bosnia drowned in blood and tears as Serb forces ravaged our land, razed our homes to the ground, and forced us into concentration camps, servitude, and hiding. The ethnic cleansing resulted in tens of thousands of deaths of innocent civilians and the displacement of several million people from their homes. From the siege of Sarajevo to the Srebrenica Massacre (the second greatest loss of life on European soil since WW2), the world watched as they laid waste to everything we knew, but in the ashes of their hate we found the strength to survive in the place we once called home!

  Noah Tapper reads his poem, “Untitled,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at Allways Lounge & Cabaret in New Orleans, LA.

Nick Perere reads his poem, “Coach O,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA .

  Louis Toliver Jr. reads his short story, “Sincerely George,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

The Louisiana Words Tour 2026 comes to Allways Lounge & Cabaret in New Orleans, LA on Sunday, July 5th at 5:00pm! LouisianaWords.com is the home of Louisiana's LGBTQIA+ writers and our allies! We help market new and seasoned writers for FREE! We primarily promote poetry and fiction! Our featured writers will include TQ Sims, Fritz Westenberger, Paige McRae, Sam Ray, Khary Wilson, Chris Anton, J. Michael Norris, and Louis Toliver Jr. We will also have an open mic for anyone who attends the show and has the passion to read any of their work. If you are interested in doing an open mic, all you have to do is show up! Fritz Westenberger will be reading from his new novel: The St. Charles Bible. Info for the novel and how to purchase is here: https://marsandpanbooks.com/store/p/the-st-charles-bible TQ Sims will also be reading from his 1st novel: Godspeed, Lovers - from his The Lovers Trilogy. Info for the novel and how to purchase is here:  https://marsandpanbooks.com/store/the-love...

  Get an up-close-and-personal look into the life of Ted A Richard - Author/Activist, who survived homophobia, addiction, abuse, and HIV/AIDS, in THE 16th SECOND: https://bit.ly/3VEpsLV . Summary: The 16th Second is the autobiography of a small-town gay boy from Deep South Louisiana who survived homophobia, alcohol and drug addiction, sexual abuse, rape, and HIV/AIDS to become somebody that no one, not even he, expected.   The story winds through his childhood, where Ted had become accustomed to coming in second. Weaving a tale of drama, heartache, and failure to the path led him to figure out what it takes to come in first and why it mattered.   His childhood recollection of “never being good enough” morphs into a world of delusions of grandeur as his search for fame seems never to materialize, which causes him to create his own definition of fame.   It is a story of redemption and success after years of searching helped him realize that he had to let go of th...

  The Louisiana Words Spring 2026 season is officially over and we are on summer break! No worries though, because we'll still be posting lives readings from last year's Louisiana Words Tour until we get to July 3rd - 5th! The Louisiana Words Tour 2026 is coming July 3rd - 5th, 2026! Please keep following us as we provide more promotions and information as we get closer the the tour! New content for Louisiana Words starts later this summer: July 19th!  

The Louisiana Words Tour 2026 comes to George’s Place in Baton Rouge, LA on Saturday, July 4th at 3:00pm LouisianaWords.com is the home of Louisiana's LGBTQIA+ writers and our allies! We help market new and seasoned writers for FREE! We primarily promote poetry and fiction! Our featured writers will include Sam Harty, Sinisa Juncan, Nick Perere, John Chenvert, Lance Wise, Khary Wilson, J. Michael Norris, and Louis Toliver Jr. We will also have an open mic for anyone who attends the show and has the passion to read any of their work. If you are interested in doing an open mic, all you have to do is show up! Siniša Jančan will be reading from his novel: Silence in the Quiet of Peace. Info for the novel and how to purchase is here: https://tinyurl.com/bdfadx6w/ All shows of the Louisiana Words Tour 2026 will be recorded and shared online for your friends, family, and the world to see! If you have any questions, please e-mail us at louisianawords@gmail.com; or message Louis Toliver Jr....

 

 

  The Louisiana Words Tour 2026 comes to Cavalier House Books in Lafayette, LA on Friday, July 3rd at 4:30pm!  LouisianaWords.com is the home of Louisiana's LGBTQIA+ writers and our allies! We help market new and seasoned writers for FREE! We primarily promote poetry and fiction! Our featured writers will include Gabi Miller, Laura Gary, Ted A. Richard, J. Michael Norris, and Louis Toliver Jr. We also will have an open mic for anyone who attends the show and has the passion to read any of their work. If you are interested in doing an open mic, all you have to do is show up!  Ted A. Richard will be reading from his novel: The 16th Second. Info for the novel and how to purchase is here: https://bit.ly/3VEpsLV All shows of the Louisiana Words Tour 2026 will be recorded and shared online for your friends, family, and the world to see!  If you have any questions, please e-mail us at louisianawords@gmail.com; or message Louis Toliver Jr. and the Louisiana Words FB page dir...

      Lance Wise reads his poem, "The Deferral" for the Louisiana Words Tour at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

  Nick Perere reads his poem, “Show Choir,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

 Louis Toliver Jr. reads his poem, “He Likes Me for Me,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

   On a regular, I order the Taco Bell Build Your Own Luxe Box.   I almost always get a Chalupa Supreme, a five layer burrito (easy on the beans), Fiesta potatoes, and a Baja Blast (upgrade to large).   All this for six dollars and eighty-one cents.   Meanwhile, tariffs go into effect.   What tariffs?   Nevermind on the tariffs.   High tariffs!   Beautiful tariffs destroying economies and people’s well-beings.   Canada is pissed at us.   Canada.   The Department of Education is being dismantled.   Concentration camps are being erected.   Let’s get rid of the National Weather Service amidst the floods, tornadoes, hurricanes.   Thrown into unbroken promise of no wars.   Breaking News!   BREAKING NEWS!   B R E A K I N G   N E WS!   The sole of my working shoes have given out.   Much like the soul of this constant chaos country.   But a constant I can rely on? Is a gr...

Let that fucker burn. Let the fire crackle like the whips once did— like bone meeting leather, like screams swallowed by the trees. Let the white columns crumble to ash. Not as tragedy— but as truth, unearthing itself from beneath generations of silence. Nottoway is not a mansion. It’s a mausoleum. A lie carved in stone to honor the hands that held the whip, not the backs that bore it. They called it the “White Castle.” A place of beauty. A place for weddings, for photo ops, for pretending that horror can be made elegant if the curtains match the guilt. But no paint can cover what happened there. Blood doesn’t wash out with white linens. And pain doesn’t forget just because you renamed it history. I’m not Black. And I won’t pretend to carry that weight. But I also won’t ignore it. My people—the Guanches—were taken too. Our language silenced. Our land stolen. Our names nearly erased. So yes, I know colonization. Yes, I know what it means to be disappeared. But I also know this— my skin ...

 

 

 

  Louis Toliver Jr. reads his short story, “Betsy Ross, the American Flag, & Me,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

  Nick Perere reads his poem, “The Harvest,” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at George's Place in Baton Rouge, LA.

Noah Tapper reads his poem, “Link in Bio” for the Louisiana Words Tour 2025 at Allways Lounge & Cabaret in New Orleans, LA.  

 

It's cloudy outside. The world is delineated in every detail. Every little shadow and line is accented sharply by the ominous thunder rumbling across the belly of the sky. The bits of color in the flowers reach but cannot leave much of a mark on the pervading gloom. The inside of the house is warm and well-lit, peaceful and serene. The laughter of carefree children echoes down through the centuries of its wooden frame. Hospitable, smelling of a home-cooked meal, one gazes through the glowing panes of glass and can only conjure memories of rustling skirts covered by wide aprons, full-chested mothers sweeping and elbow-deep in dough, scolding their children and wiping away their tears. The house now stands abandoned and empty, only dust and cobwebs covering the windows. Long ago and far away, I recognized the nostalgia of the times that came before as I look down the neon street, the first drops starting to hurtle down from the dark heavens above.

  I had a rough night. I don’t have a friend nor family in sight. I’m driving home, tank almost empty. I feeling pretty low, but I’m a little high. I come behind an ambulance, a woman is on a stretcher inside. She looks like she is barely holding on. Oxygen mask. Low breathing. Paramedics in panic. My heart cries for her and envies her. Tonight, one of us is going to hell and one of is not. I should have just driven around the ambulance, it was a four-lane. But, I just wanted to cruise behind at speed that pulled along like an umbilical cord. Attached. Because, in that moment me and that woman, both, were on our way home.

 

 

  Let's express ourselves! Literacy helps free the mind! Literacy helps build community! Our voices matter more then ever! LouisianaWords.com is the home of Louisiana's LGBTQIA+ writers and our allies! We help market new and seasoned writers for FREE! Just submit your work and we’ll get you into our content rotation! You may submit your content to louisianawords@gmail.com or you may contact us through social media! Our Spring 2026 season of new Louisiana Words content started Sunday, April 26th! As of January 2025, Louisiana Words has officially become a nonprofit organization! So, we are looking to share the good news with a few live shows across the state of Louisiana. We are planning a Louisiana Words tour to showcase local LGBTQIA+ writers and spread the word about Louisiana Words, LLC . The show is free! The dates will be Friday, July 3rd – Sunday, July 5th. We will be visiting Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans in that order.   Friday, July 3rd: Lafayette - Ca...

  How did I get here? When I look at the blackness behind my eyes I am brought to a different place. The blackness and the color of my present perception are equally familiar. It is as if I am made up of three oscillating moments Playing the music of a life that is mine and others. The blackness keeps the time of my most beautiful and colorful moments So vivid in the blackness The current moment is filled with color and question It is the most real moment But the most uncertain It is the most confusing moment.... How did I get there? A more comforting moment rests in the future It flows to whatever rhythm I desire It is driven by the two moments of blackness and reality All three moments working together make up the movement of the mind.