Author Event! Chris Champagne, "Secret Louisiana"

Program Type:

Lecture

Age Group:

Everybody

Event Details

Chris Champagne, writer, performer, poet, comedian, political satirist, radio show host and author of a new book titled Secret Louisiana, will discuss it at 7 p.m., Tuesday, April 1, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

Secret Louisiana features quite a bit of odd information.

  • The smallest church in the world
  • the grave of two dogs who got married
  • a tree where old shoes promise to unburden your soul
  • the only example of Congo-style architecture built by African Americans
  • the one-time capital of Texas
  • one of the most humorous “battles” of World War II
  • millions of years-old fossils on the side of a highway
  • the site of the finest wedding ever to take place in the South
  • the world’s largest bald cypress tree
  • the flag of the Republic of West Florida (an independent country for two months in 1810)
  • the world’s largest chimpanzee sanctuary
  • the highest natural summit in Louisiana
  • the oldest human-fabricated structures in the Americas
  • one of the most mysterious headstone carvings you’re likely to see anywhere
  • the only international boundary marker in the contiguous United States
  • the smallest plane ever used as Air Force One,
  • full dinosaur hidden in the heart of Baton Rouge ...

A lifelong resident of New Orleans, Chris Champagne is a graduate of the Orleans Parish School system and of the University of New Orleans with a BA in History. He is a writer, performer, poet, comedian, political satirist, radio show host and columnist who has performed his work on stages all over the Greater New Orleans area. 

Champagne was voted one of 144 New Orleans Characters in 2012 and was voted best comedian in New Orleans in 2013 and 2014. He was a member of National Poetry Slam teams in San Francisco in 1993 and Chicago in 1999. He received artists’ residencies from the Alliance of Artists in 2006 and The College of Santa Fe in 2008. Champagne is the author of the poetry book Roach Opera and The Yat Dictionary, a book on the dialect spoken by native Orleanians. His family on both sides has resided in New Orleans continuously since the first half of the 18th century.