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 ...