620. Rien Fertel, Part 2.

620. Part 2 of our conversation with Rien Fertel. “I’m a Louisiana-born and based writer and teacher. My most recent book, out September 2022, is Brown Pelican, a human history of the very best bird. I’ve penned three earlier books. The Drive-By Truckers’ Southern Rock Opera, #133 in Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series, about a road trip based on a recent classic album about a road trip. The One True Barbecue: Fire, Smoke, and the Pitmasters Who Cook the Whole Hog,a personal/historical reflection on race, labor, and foodways in the Deep South, came out in 2016 from Simon & Schuster's Touchstone imprint. My first book, Imagining the Creole City, an intellectual and literary study of a circle of writers in nineteenth-century New Orleans, arrived in 2014.”

1. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today!
   
2. This week in Louisiana history. April 5, 1893. First electric railway car runs in Baton Rouge.
   
3. This week in New Orleans history. April 6, 1914. Duck chosen over frog. In 1914, the Daily Picayune and the Times-Democrat newspapers merged and published both banners across the tops of pages. Ashton Phelps took the reigns as president of what would become The Times-Picayune. The Times-Democrat's duck mascot  appeared on the front page on April 6, 1914, taking the place of the Picayune's frog mascot, which first appeared twenty years earlier, on January 13, 1894.
   
4. This week in Louisiana.
   April 11-13, 2025
   Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival
   Ponchatoula Memorial Park
   301 North 6th St.
   Ponchatoula, LA
   strawberryfest@bellsouth.net
   800.917.7045
   Website
   Strawberry Capital of the World
   Since 1972, the Ponchatoula Strawberry Festival has attracted visitors from near and far to celebrate our local strawberry farmers, non-profits, and our special community, flourishing into the largest free harvest festival in the state of Louisiana. Join us for three days filled with time-honored traditions, amazing food and drinks, live music, rides, and loads of family fun!
   
5. Postcards from Louisiana. Louisiana Book Festival Band.

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