Double Dealer
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The DOUBLE DEALER "Improvisation’s special precinct, that place where we ever long for an immediacy we cannot completely inhabit, the Greeks called Hermes." 2014 - 2015 Edition Published at New Orleans The Double Dealer 2014 - 2015 cccccccccc J cccccccccc 2014 Joint Ventures The Faulkner Society regularly enters into cooperative ventures with other non-profit organizations and public agencies to present expanded cultural opportunities for the Greater New Orleans community. This year, the Society is again privileged to partner with The National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to present BIG READ programming, this year based on the fabulous novel by Ethiopian-born American author, Dinaw Mengestu: The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears. New to the Faulkner Society’s Words & Music and BIG READ sponsor team is the law firm of Jones, Swanson, Huddell, & Garrison. Local support comes also from the City of New Orleans and the Louisiana Divsion of the Arts in grants administered by the Arts Council of New Orleans. A major underwriter of BIG READ and our Pan American Connections programming for 2014, is Loyola University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, directed by Uriel Quesads, Ph.D. 2 The Double Dealer 2014 - 2015 cccccccccc J cccccccccc pSalute to PatronsP Guarantors Bertie Deming Smith & The Deming Foundation & Charles Heiner Judith “Jude” Swenson In Memory of James Swenson Joseph DeSalvo, Jr., Rosemary James & Faulkner House, Inc. Randy Fertel and the Ruth U. Fertel Foundation Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies, Loyola University: Dr. Uriel Quesada University of New Orleans: Latin American Studies Program: Dr. Steve Striffler Nancy Moss & Family In Memory of Hartwig Moss, IV Mary Freeman Wisdom Foundation The Zemurray Foundation National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, Institute of Museum & Library Services: THE BIG READ Arts Council of New Orleans, City of New Orleans, and Louisiana Division of the Arts State Library of Louisiana & The Louisiana Festival of the Book Jones, Swanson, Huddell & Garrison Joséphine Sacabo & Dalt Wonk Department of English: Tulane University Karl Holzmuller Hotel Monteleone & The Monteleone Family Anne & Ron Pincus Theodosia Nolan, Tia & James Roddy, Peter Tattersall St. Louis Cathedral - St. Mary’s Catholic Church - Bishop Perry Center David Speights in Memory of Marti Speights Spring Journal: Nancy Cater, Publisher Dr. Nia Terezakis Mary & Roland Von Kornatowski Marion Wallis Joyce & Steve Wood Good Friends Carol Allen & Harold Patin; Tad Bartlett; Margarita Bergen; Jason Berry; Angie Bowlin; Richard Britson; Barbara Brothers; Hortensia Calvo; Julia Cass; Batou Chandler; Hal & Cherie Clark; Jeanie Clinton; William Coles; Amy Conner; Moira Crone & Rodger Kamenetz; Kirk Curnutt; Frank DeSalvo; Loraine Despres & Carleton Eastlake; Susan Dodd; Isaac Dwyer; Karen & Ollie Edmunds; Carol Follman; Christopher Franzen, Patty Friedmann; Jon Geggenheimer; Liz Gruder; Douglas & Elaine Grundmeyer; Michael Harold & Quinn Peeper; W. Kenneth Holditch; Jade Hurter; Ron Kaiser; Mary Helen Lagasse; Carolyn & A.J. Levy; Nancy Kitay Litwin; Tommy Lewis & Margaret Skinner; Pamela & James Lott; Pam Lupin; Mr. & Mrs. Ivan Mandich; Ken & Lesley Mask; Lee McDonough; Sandie McNamara; Laura Lane McNeil; Carol Meyers; Colleen Mooney; Sybil Morial; Bert & Joel Myers; Rachelle O’Brien and Rosary O’Neill; Kent Osborne; Gisele Perez; Alessandro Powell; Lawrence & Diana Powell; Caroline Rash; Alex Rico; Robert Rintz; Rheba Schlesinger; David Speights & Virginia Gould; Sue Strachan; Jeff Strout; Dr. Carlos Trujillo & Bryan Drude; Linda Usdin & Steven Bingler; Terry Verigan & Kathy Higgins; Bonnie Warren & Cheryl Gerber, Barbara Williams & Barbara Pace The Double Dealer 2014 - 2015 3 cccccccccc J cccccccccc The Double Dealer, the Society’s literary journal, was created in the image of the1920s and 30s Double Dealer, a New Orleans journal, which was the first publisher of the work of Nobel laureate William Faulkner and the early work of such important authors as Ernest Hemingway. The original Double Dealer was founded by Albert Goldstein, Julius Weiss Friend, John McClure, and Basil Thompson, along with dedicated Louisiana guarantors, who were tired of hearing the South described as a literary backwater by Eastern Establishment critics, including notably H. L. Menken, who later became a cheerleader for the journal. The Society’s goals in re-establishing the journal were to provide a forum showcasing developing writers alongside established authors and to provide educational resources for writers and teachers. William Faulkner was just a young man when he came to New Orleans and found his muse as a novelist. He was 27 when he wrote his first novel, Soldiers’ Pay, in the room that now houses Faulkner House Books on the ground floor of 624 Pirate’s Alley. He worried about the same things developing writers worry about today. Will I get it right? Will a publisher think I got it right? Will anyone remember what I have written after I am gone? Is it all for naught? He found strength in the freedom of our city’s laid back, easygoing society and the concurrent heartfelt nurturing he found in New Orleans, support he needed to become America’s most celebrated fiction writer. To all the readers visiting the pages of the 2014 Double Dealer we hope you will enjoy the talent exhibited by contributors. As for writers, we hope you find your way to New Orleans and here find a dose of the same kind of nurturing and inspiration Mr. Faulkner found. Cover Art: Hermes by Alan Gerson Hermes by Alan Gerson is the cover image for Randy Fertel's, the new, definitive book on improvisation in the arts, A Taste for Chaos. Randy’s new book inspired the 2014 theme for Words & Music, 2014 at which he was Keynote speaker. Artist Alan Gerson, a “recovering attorney,” received his MFA from UNO in 1980 and was the visual arts director for the Contemporary Arts Center before receiving his law degree from Tulane. After three years in practice, he “wised up” and returned to art. He’s had one-man shows in New Orleans, New York, Santa Fe, Miami, and Pasadena and has participated in group shows nationally and abroad. He was a prize-winner at the 2000 Florence Biennale. His work is in the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Ogden Museum for Southern Art, and many distinguished private collections. Described as dreamlike, highly personal, and imagined, his work is sophisticated, frequently with a “faux naive” approach with aspects of both the real world and an imaginary universe. His “goofy guy” character present in many of his paintings, at times only in spirit, is a teeth-grinding everyman/woman dropped into a world he or she is barely capable of understanding. In 2011, Alan’s por- trait of Mr. Faulkner conjured the Nobel Laureate as he liked to imagine himself from time to time, a country gentleman riding to the hounds, refreshing his spirit with a Jack Daniels Julep. The painting was auctioned to benefit the Faulkner Society’s literacy projects for at-risk teenagers and continuing lter- ary Education for adults. Alan and his work sum up the originality in art that results from individual improvisation, building on but departing what has gone before. The Double Dealer 2014 - 2015 4 cccccccccc J cccccccccc cccccccccc J cccccccccc pWelcome!P Welcome back to The Double Dealer! Randy Isaac Dwyer is a student at Bennington College in Fertel's mammoth accomplishment, A Taste for Vermont, where he studies anthropology, Spanish, and Chaos: The Art of Literary Improvisation, has been history. Alongside working as internet magician at the an inspiration for us this edition, reminding us of the Pirates' Alley Faulkner Society, he's also done web de- integral role improvisation plays in both life and art. sign and editing work for The Silo, the literary journal published at Bennington. Last year, he was a winner in Now an online journal, the California Young Playwrights Contest. When in The Double Dealer is published high school, he placed (three times!) in the Society's with the William Faulkner - short story contest for high school students. most of William Wisdom Creative work is now in translation. Writing Competition and Words & Music:,, inc. We would also like to thank Christine Mur- phy, a published poet and non-fiction writer currently Working with our Associate working on novels and a memoir, who volunteered Editorss—Caroline Rash, valuable copy editing . Shari Stauch, Jade Hurter, and Isaac Dwyer—is a great We are actively pleasure for me because of soliciting sponsors for their diverse talents. All are our next issue and future writers but they have editing and publishing skills as issues to ensure that well. The Double Dealer will Caroline Rash comes to New Orleans by way continue into the future. of Clemson, SC; Dalian, China; and Conway, AR. If you are interested in Currently a copy edtior at Peter Mayer Advertising, becoming a guarantor or she has contributed as a freelance writer to regional advertiser, we’d love to newspapers and interned at Oxford American magazine. hear from you: [email protected] Shari Stauch has been in publishing, market- ing and PR for 33 years. She is a frequent presenter at Words & Music and five-time finalist in the Faulkner- We hope you enjoy the Wisdom Competition, with first-runner-up finishes in edition! both Novel-in-Progress and Essay. Her firm, Where Writers Win, works with emerging —Rosemary James authors to provide marketing, websites, training