Saturday Morning Writer's Clinic

- Two local authors – Madeline Landry and Sharon LaCour - will be the featured speakers at the Saturday Writer’s Clinic for April 12, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

9:30 a.m. – Saturday, April 12

“Perceptions in Writing” with Madeline Landry

“As a writer, it fascinated me to learn about the perception process in graduate school,” Landry said. “I became an Interpersonal Communication instructor and soon found the lessons about perception spoke loudly to me. Interacting with my students, I learned so much. Suddenly something clicked: This is why a book or story means something to us as readers. This is why a book or story doesn’t mean the same thing to me when I read it as a young adult compared to when I read a year or many years later. This is why a book or story changes us as writers and changes our readers. This seminar is about how that process works?”

Madelaine Brauner Landry received her BA in Political Science from University of Louisiana, Lafayette in 2004 and her MS in Communication Studies from ULL in 2006. She served as the Executive Director for the LSUE Foundation until 2016, as well as an adjunct instructor for LSUE, ULL, SOWELA and McNeese State University. She continues to teach online and is a freelance writer for local media. She recently self-published Caro Giovanni (Dear John), a novel of historical fiction. She has two previous books, Every Living Thing, a novel and a memoir, I Have the Right to Remain Silent, But Lack the Ability. 

11 a.m., Saturday, April 12

“Point of View” with Sharon LaCour

Point of view refers to the perspective that the narrator holds in relation to the events of the story. The three primary points of view are first person, in which the narrator tells a story from their own perspective ("I went to the store"); second person, in which the narrator tells a story about you, the reader or viewer ("You went to the store"); and third person, in which the narrator tells a story about other people ("He went to the store"). Each point of view creates a different experience for the reader, because, in each point of view, different types and amounts of information are available to the reader about the story's events and characters.

Sharon LaCour’s stories and essays have been published in the Xavier, Sheepshead, Chautauqua and Arkansas Reviews among others. Sharon’s debut literary novel, The Meeting of Air and Water, was a novel-in-progress finalist in the William Wisdom-William Faulkner novel competition in 2019. The novel was inspired by the photographs of Fonville Winans, a Baton Rouge photographer who documented Louisiana Cajun life in the 1920s. It follows the lives of two women artists, one grandmother to the other, who struggle against societal and cultural expectations that threaten their need to create. 

For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.