Join Joie de Vivre for our 1st annual Louisiana Arts & Culture Festival!
This two-day gathering focused on “South Louisiana & Literature” will bring together local and national novelists, short story writers, poets, and artists with our wider community to celebrate the feast that is our Catholic faith and the literary and visual arts.
Gather with us on the grounds of St. Joseph Abbey, burial place of Walker Percy, where beneath majestic oaks and soaring pines the liturgical and artistic treasures of the Church continue to nourish each other. In this storied literary setting, minutes from Covington and only an hour from New Orleans, we’ll delve into the rich relationship of world and word, considering, through voices past and present, how South Louisiana continues to inspire its own literary tradition and how that tradition interacts with the wider literary world.
Together, we’ll enjoy:
keynote presentations by Tim Gautreaux & Katy Carl
concurrent sessions & workshops
poetry reading with James Matthew Wilson
live reading of Jane Scharl’s Mardi Gras murder mystery verse play, Sonnez Les Matins
Liturgy of the Hours and Mass with the Benedictine monks
bourbon stroll on the Abbey grounds
life-giving community and socials
optional housing accommodations at the Abbey
Featured Speakers
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Timothy Gautreaux
Professor Emeritus, Southeastern Louisiana University (Hammond) | Author of The Next Step in the Dance; The Clearing; Same Place, Same Things; Welding with Children; and The Missing
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Katy Carl
Writer-in-Residence, University of St. Thomas (Houston) | Author of As Earth Without Water; Fragile Objects; and Praying the Great O Antiphons: My Soul Magnifies the Lord.
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James Matthew Wilson
Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature, University of St. Thomas (Houston) | Author of Saint Thomas and the Forbidden Birds; The Vision of the Soul; The Hanging Birds; Some Permanent Things; and Catholic Modernism and the Irish "Avant-Garde".
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Jane Scharl
Author of Sonnez Les Matines & Ponds and Ponds.
Saint Joseph Abbey & Seminary College
Saint Benedict, Louisiana
Saint Joseph Abbey is a Benedictine community of monks located on 1,100 acres of beautiful pine forests in Saint Benedict, Louisiana. Over the past century, the Abbey has been an abiding spiritual presence in the Gulf South and has left an indelible mark on local and regional history. The Abbey has educated many of the region's civic and religious leaders, and it has founded and staffed numerous parishes in the New Orleans and Northshore areas. It has also had a significant impact on area culture by sponsoring and promoting programs in both liturgical and secular arts. And finally, Saint Joseph Abbey’s monks have remained faithful to prayer, work, and the monastic way of life.
Saint Joseph Abbey is a member of the Swiss-American Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict, a network of autonomous, Roman Catholic monasteries in the United States, Canada, and Central America. Currently, the Right Reverend Justin Brown, O.S.B., former abbot of Saint Joseph Abbey, is the congregation’s Abbot President.
Thanks to the generous support of Saint Joseph Abbey, the 1st annual Joie de Vivre Louisiana Arts and Culture Festival will be hosted on these beautiful grounds, and we will be able to enjoy Liturgy of the Hours and Mass with the monks, in addition to walking the Abbey grounds.
Schedule
Friday
Registration/Happy Hour/Gallery - 4:00-6:00pm
Vespers - 5:30-6:00pm (Abbey Church)
Welcome/Opening Prayer/Introductory Remarks - 6:05pm (Benet)
Dinner - 6:15-7:15pm (Refectory)
Keynote #1 (Katy Carl) - 7:20-8:15pm (Benet)
Social - 8:30-10:00pm (Wharf)
Saturday
Lauds - 7:00 AM (Abbey Church)
Breakfast - 7:40-8:15am (Refectory)
Remarks, dismiss to breakouts - 8:15-8:25am (Refectory)
Concurrent #1 - 8:40-9:40am (TBD)
Break - 9:40-10:00am
Concurrent #2 - 10:00-11:00am (TBD)
Mass – 11:15 AM (Abbey Church)
Lunch - 12:00-1:15pm (Refectory)
Concurrent #3 - 1:25-2:25pm (TBD)
Bourbon stroll/free time - 2:30-4:00pm (Abbey grounds)
Poetry reading - 4:15-5:15pm (Benet)
Vespers – 5:30 PM (Abbey Church)
Dinner - 6:00-6:50pm (Refectory)
Keynote #2 (Tim Gautreaux) - 7:00-8:00pm (Benet)
Live reading of Sonnez les Matines - 8:10-8:55pm (Benet)
Closing remarks - 8:55-9:05pm (Benet)
Social - 9:00-10:30pm (Wharf)
Presenting Sponsor
Matthew & Julie Ungarino
Scott & Jill Cabes
Natalie Miller Wood
The Moviegoer Sponsors
Ad majorem Dei gloriam
Reiling Family Foundation
Lost in the Cosmos Sponsors
Sponsor the Fest!
Are you a local entrepreneur and business leader that would like to support this one-of-a-kind cultural event for the Catholic Church in South Louisiana? If so, we would like to invite you to sponsor the Fest! To receive more information, fill out the form below: