Time to Find Some New Classics
All over the world, people have heard of the names Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire), Tennessee Williams (Streetcar Named Desire), and John Kennedy Toole (Confederacy of Dunces). Kate Chopin (The Awakening), James Lee Burke (the Dave Robicheaux mystery series), and Walker Percy (The Moviegoer) also likely ring bells of recognition.
Those classics are classics for a reason—they've impacted the lives of generations of readers and stood the test of time. But shouldn't we be reading books by living legends? Enjoying narratives from voices who might be the next Rice, Williams, Burke, or Toole?
Here are 15 Louisiana authors we admire. They have published in a wide breadth of styles, so you can find your own new favorite classic.
1. Marti Dumas
Self-proclaimed mom/teacher/writer Marti Dumas has created the whimsical Wildseed Witch series. If you're looking for middle grade chapter books, go no further. The cover artwork is as exciting and inviting as the words inside it. Being a witch is about being an outsider: struggling, suffering, and finding your inner magic. What could be more relevant to middle school life?
2. Jesamyn Ward
Jesamyn Ward's dark new novel Let Us Descend keeps selling out at local bookstores. A professor of English at Tulane University and a two-time National Book Award-winner, Ward was also featured on Late Night with Seth Meyers and her work is catching on all over the states. Salvage the Bones and Men We Reaped are also powerful reads.
3. Rien Fertel
Out on LSU Press, Rien Fertel's Brown Pelican is a complex, in-depth, nonfiction narrative about our beloved state bird. Fertel's other releases Drive-By Truckers Southern Rock Opera (released in the 331/3 series), The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog, and Imagining the Creole City: The Rise of Literary Culture in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans also explore fascinating facets of Southern history.
4. Maurice Carlos Ruffin
University of New Orleans alumnus and former lawyer turned award-winning writer Maurice Carlos Ruffin uses his voice and success to amplify stories and issues important to New Orleans. He's written opinion pieces for The New York Times, Oxford American, Garden & Gun, and Time. His three books have all come out on Penguin Random House: The Ones Who Don't Say They Love You, We Cast a Shadow, and The American Daughters.
5. Shannon Kelley Atwater
When the floral goddess of the Krewe de Fleurs Shannon Kelley Atwater isn't parading in sparkly regalia, she is making kids books. Atwater wrote and illustrated two incredibly popular children's books, Goodnight Pothole and Alligators Don't Like Flowers, and illustrated a third called Rainbow Rodney. They are all local, humorous, warm, and as colorful as it gets.
6. Adrian Van Young
A surprisingly prolific fiction and nonfiction writer, Adrian Van Young explores the creepy side of sci-fi with his new short story collection Midnight Self, if you're looking for some exciting alien action.
7. Katy Simpson Smith
Katy Simpson Smith's first book, out on LSU Press, We Have Raised All of You: Motherhood in the South, 1750-1835 has been a part of gender and Southern studies curriculums. Her third novel The Everlasting made it onto The New York Times' 10 best historical fiction of 2020 list. Her newest, The Weeds, which just came out in 2023, is a twisty novel about love, botany, and sacrifice.
8. Karisma Price
Poet Karisma Price just released her first poetry collection called I'm Always So Serious, and it is a stunning exploration of loss, race, and family.
9. Carolyn Hembree
Carolyn Hembree, an associate professor at the University of New Orleans, has released two wonderful collections: Rigging a Chevy into a Time Machine and Other Ways to Escape a Plague in 2016 and Skinny in 2012. Her newest collection, For Today, just released in early 2024.
10. Alys Arden
YA author Alys Arden found success with her debut novel The Casquette Girls and built it into a page-turning series with The Romeo Catchers, The Cities of Dead, and The Gates of Guinée. With the help of illustrator Jacquilin de Leon, she created a graphic novel through DC Comics called Zatanna: The Jewel of Gravesend.
11. Fatima Shaik
Even the cover of Fatima Shaik's Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood makes you feel like you're about to read something of substance and filled with secrets. It's nonfiction that reads like a well woven tail of stories about early Black activism in New Orleans.
12. Sarah M. Broom
Native New Orleanian and the youngest of 12 children, Sarah M. Broom's loosely autobiographical family history, The Yellow House, is based in New Orleans East. Not only is she a National Book Award Winner and a New York Times Best Seller, her first novel is well on its way to being a classic with another forthcoming.
13. M.O. Walsh
This past year, M.O. Walsh had the honor of having his book The Big Door Prize turned into a highly rated TV show. It could be argued that his book My Sunshine Away is even more beloved, so choose for yourself.
14. Ryan André Brasseaux
Yale University professor Ryan André Brasseaux, who grew up in Western Louisiana and frequently collaborates with his lifelong friends in the Lost Bayou Ramblers, published a comprehensive textbook-style history on the roots of Cajun music, through Oxford University Press, called Cajun Breakdown: The Emergence of an American-Made Music.
15. Carl Anthony Brasseaux
Ryan Brasseaux's father Carl Anthony Brasseaux is also a famous living published historian, known for writing more than 30 books including: Stir the Pot: A History of Cajun Cuisine, Scattered to the Wind: Dispersal and Wanderings of the Acadians, and The Founding of New Acadia: The Beginnings of Acadian Life in Louisiana.
