Literary New Orleans

New Orleans native John Kennedy Toole’s iconic work “A Confederacy of Dunces” won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. The story of its publication is worthy of its own book – or, in this case, podcast! This is a rare 1982 interview with Mrs. Thelma Ducoing Toole, the author’s mother. She talks with Dr. Kenneth Holditch, a friend, literary scholar and longtime professor of English at the Univer...

Literary scholar Dr. Kenneth Holditch taught at the University of New Orleans for almost three decades. He was considered one of America’s most respected scholars concerning the life and work of Tennessee Williams and works by many Southern authors. In this interview with Peggy Scott Laborde, Holditch, who died in 2022, discusses Williams and numerous writers connected to New Orleans, including Wa...

Lawyer-turned author and English professor Maurice Carlos Ruffin is a New Orleans native who has written two novels along with a collection of short stories. The LSU creative writing professor and recipient of numerous awards spoke with Peggy Scott Laborde about why New Orleans has become a popular literary setting, as well as talked about some of his favorite writers and books and what influence...

Internationally-known biographer and Tulane University professor Walter Isaacson was born in New Orleans. The noted American historian and journalist first came to know National Book Award winner Walker Percy when he was a student, and then as a friend. In this interview for the WYES documentary “Literary New Orleans,” he spoke with producer Peggy Scott Laborde about Percy, as well as his connecti...

T.R. Johnson is the author of the highly-acclaimed book “New Orleans: A Writer’s City.” A professor of English at Tulane University, he teaches a course on the literary history of New Orleans, which makes him the perfect person to discuss the topic with producer Peggy Scott Laborde. In the interview, the two discuss why the city is such a fertile setting for writers and talk about many of Louisian...

From WYES - New Orleans' storyteller - this is Literary New Orleans, a podcast looking at the locally-written word over three centuries of history, based on the WYES-TV documentary "Literary New Orleans," produced and hosted by Peggy Scott Laborde. It features interviews with Walter Isaacson, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, T.R. Johnson, Dr. Kenneth Holditch and Thelma Toole. This "Liter...