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Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
AuthorViews is pleased to present two minutes with writer, publisher, and now children's book author, Antonio Crawford, cut from his interview at the 2007 Virginia Festival of the Book.
Crawford has been in the publishing business for years, but this is the first kids' book he has been involved with. What a debut! Henrietta the Hyena, written and published by Crawford, is a fun, captivating and educational children's story, filled with bright, colorful illustrations and a writing style that evokes learning.
In this video, Crawford talks about Henrietta the Hyena and the joy he gets from working with and teaching children.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 26 March 2008 )
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Tuesday, 25 March 2008 |
Louie Crowder's Calme Au Blanc is a play about living and loving in downtown New Orleans, around the two-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
AuthorViews met up with Louie Crowder at the 2008 Alternative Media Expo in New Orleans to talk about Calme Au Blanc. In this two-minute video cut from his interview, Crowder discusses how living in a city as culturally rich as New Orleans can have a profound impact on what people do and how they do it. For Crowder, New Orleans culture permeates what he writes about and even his writing style.
We are releasing this video just in time for Calme Au Blanc's final week of performances. After a successful run at the Big Top Gallery in New Orleans, this is your last chance to catch the play.
The final three performances are Thursday through Saturday, March 27 - 29, at 8:00PM at the Big Top Gallery.
Also, to give you a preview of Calme Au Blanc, Crowder was nice enough to provide an excerpt from the play, which you can read below the video.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 26 March 2008 )
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Thursday, 20 March 2008 |
AuthorViews is proud to present two entertaining minutes with New Orleans biker, punk, and author Ethan Clark, cut from his interview at the 2007 New Orleans Book Fair.
Leaning with Intent to Fall is a series of Clark's personal stories about public drunkenness, getting chased by stray dogs, hitchhiking across the country, and other wacky and amusing adventures that celebrate the biker-punk subculture. Clark's stories take place in pre-Katrina and post-Katrina New Orleans, as well as in Asheville, NC, where Clark relocated after the hurricane.
In this video, Clark talks about some of the wild things that happened to him in his first month-and-a-half back to New Orleans after Katrina, while he was trying to finish up his book.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 21 March 2008 )
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Wednesday, 19 March 2008 |
From the Crescent City, AuthorViews is excited to introduce Michael "Rex" Dingler, New Orleans artist, activist and creator of the NOLA Rising Project. We met up with Dingler at the 2008 Alternative Media Expo in New Orleans for an interview you don't want to miss.
If you've had the chance to wander around New Orleans within the last year or so, anywhere from the bustling streets of the French Quarter to the emptiness of the lower Ninth Ward, you've no doubt seen the uplifting work of Dingler and his NOLA Rising Project.
NOLA Rising is a post-Katrina art campaign encouraging the people of New Orleans to display works of art across all areas of the city, in hopes of renewing the creative spirit of New Orleans and just giving residents something bright and cheerful to smile about.
Since the project's inception in mid-2007, Dingler personally has drawn over 2000 posters and 500 signs that have been put up by NOLA Rising "street teams" on walls, telephone polls, bulletin boards -- anywhere and everywhere -- throughout the Greater New Orleans area.
Dingler has spawned an entire movement out of his vision to brighten up New Orleans. Friends and supporters contribute to NOLA Rising with paintings and signs by the hundreds, hoping to replace the bleakness of a hurricane's aftermath with creativity, color and the New Orleans spirit.
For some (ridiculous) reason, there are a few individuals throughout the city who have taken offense at the project, viewing the art as nothing more than graffiti.
According to an article in The Gambit Weekly, "Fighting the Aerosol Nation," for the past five years, Fred Radtke has been in charge of a Louisiana nonprofit organization called Operation: Clean Sweep, essentially an anti-graffiti task force.
With the support of local government and law enforcement, Radtke is responsible for removing graffiti. But since he can't just erase the graffiti, Radtke covers it with gray paint, and consequently has come to be known as the The Gray Ghost.
Over the past few months, Radtke and Operation: Clean Sweep have begun to target NOLA Rising, specifically Rex Dingler. This is not only unfair, but insane, since Dingler clearly has positive intentions, not to mention the fact that this project has nothing to do with graffiti -- it's installation artwork that can be removed easily. What's the point of painting the "gray ghost" over a stapled-up poster that you can simply pull down?
Radtke has gone so far as to have a police officer cite Dingler for 1,100 counts of illegally posting on telephone polls, an absurd charge that Dingler is fighting wholeheartedly, despite the immense cost of his legal defense. As the trial date nears, here's what Dingler has to say about Radtke.
Taking the advice of his legal representation, Buddy Spell of the law firm Spell & Spell, Dingler has set up a defense fund to help him raise enough money to cover his legal costs. Donations to the fund can be made to:
SPELL & SPELL
C/O Michael Dingler Defense Fund
924 Ellis Street
Franklinton, LA 70438
Check out Dingler's AuthorViews video and the Defend New Orleans video, for more information on NOLA Rising and the trumped-up charges against the artist.
There's also a good article in New Orleans CityBusiness, called "'Gray Ghost' Feuds with Nola Rising Creator," which offers statements from both Dingler and Radtke.
Photos courtesy of Humid City
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Last Updated ( Monday, 24 March 2008 )
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Tuesday, 18 March 2008 |
AuthorViews is excited to present two minutes with fantasy novelist Chris Matherne, cut from his interview at the 2007 New Orleans Book Fair.
Matherne is a life-long fan of fantasy and adventure novels. In fact, he decided to write The Shaping of a Destiny because he was tired of reading "slow paced fantasy adventure books that seemed to crawl along at a snail's pace." Matherne's debut novel is anything but slow.
In this video, Matherne discusses why he thinks readers enjoy The Shaping of a Destiny, and offers two humorous anecdotes about his writing experiences.
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 26 March 2008 )
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