We’re just finishing up the latest festival for our most famous writer.  Not cheap to attend, but probably worth it, if you are a writer or a reader on New Orleans or the South. Nice website: it’s in my links on the right.

What I know about him-off the top of my head:

Came here from St. Louis to get a job on the WPA Writer’s Project: was not hired by Lyle Saxon. Came back and lived on Toulouse, then on Orleans then on Dumaine.

Lived in Key West later in life.

Poker Night was the original name for the play Streetcar Named Desire. The Desire streetcar started running in 1920, and traveled down Decatur, through the French Market, over to Royal, then right on Canal and right again on Bourbon to head to Desire. Streetcar was shut down the year or year after the play opened on Broadway.

Had a party where the landlady poured hot water through the floorboards to quiet everyone down.

He said:

“There are only 3 cities in the United States-New York, San Francisco and New Orleans. The rest is just Cleveland.”