Gary Richards, professor of english, led the One Book, One Festival talk on Eudora Welty’s 1972 novel The Optimist’s Daughter at the twentieth Louisiana Book Festival held on the capitol grounds in Baton Rouge on Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024.

Richards has led this annual event over a dozen times since it was created fifteen years ago, covering texts such as Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms and “A Christmas Memory,” Robert Penn Warren‘s All the King’s Men, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, and Ernest Gaines’s A Gathering of Old Men. His appearance was made possible in part by a Strategic Partnership Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Gary Richards, Professor of English, recently attended the 38th annual Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival where, on March 22, he was one of four panelists on “A Truman Capote Reading and Discussion,” organized to mark the writer’s centennial. Other panelists were actor Brenda Currin, socialite Anna Christina “Tina” Radziwill, and novelist Colm Toíbín.

On March 23, Richards also led the festival’s breakfast reading group, which explored the short stories of Eudora Welty, including “Lily Daw and the Three Ladies,” “Why I Live at the P.O.,” “A Curtain of Green,” “Powerhouse,” “Moon Lake,” and “No Place You, My Love.” He has led this event since 2007.

On October 28, Gary Richards, Professor of English, led the 45-minute discussion of Truman Capote’s Other Voices, Other Rooms to mark its 75th anniversary at the Louisiana Book Festival. He also moderated the 45-minute panel “Autofiction: Life Meets Fiction” featuring Christie Gabour Atwood’s Calling Home, Teresa Tumminello Brader’s Letting in Air and Light, and Jeffrey Dale Lofton’s Red Clay Suzie. The festival is an international gathering of creative writers and scholars held each year at the state capitol complex in Baton Rouge, LA. Gary’s appearance was made possible in part by a Strategic Partnership Grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.

Dr. Gary Richards, who has led many previous sessions since One Book, One Festival began in 2008, returns to moderate the discussion. Richards is a professor of English and former chair of the Department of English and Linguistics at the University of Mary Washington. This will be the 11th time he’s led the One Book, One Festival discussion. Read more.

Professor of English Gary Richards led a discussion of six of Kate Chopin’s representative short stories at the sold-out special event “Books and Beignets with Gary Richards” at the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival on Saturday, March 25. Richards has presented in this series 15 times since 2007, lecturing on authors that include Ellen Gilchrist, John Kennedy Toole, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Harper Lee, James Baldwin and, in multiple sessions, Tennessee Williams.

To mark the 75th anniversary of Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire, Professor of English Gary Richards led the discussion of that play in the One Book, One Festival series at the Louisiana Book Festival on Saturday, October 29, 2022, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This was his tenth time to participate in that series at the festival, having also led the programs on Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory,” and Ernest Gaines’s A Gathering of Old Men, among others. His appearance was made possible in part by a grant from the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.