A Virtual Mardi Gras Party!
WNBA-NOLA members had a ball at our virtual Mardi Gras Party Saturday, February 6!
Before joining the Zoom group, we each chose our favorite king cake or pie and a beverage. Many of us were wearing the traditional purple, green and gold colors and costumes of Carnival.
We shared our Mardi Gras memories and favorite books of 2020. Using an online spinning wheel we gave away some great prizes to participants:
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a one-year paid subscription to Roxane Gay’s newsletter The Audacity,
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a one-year paid subscription to Jami Attenberg’s newsletter Craft Talk,
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a signed Jami Attenberg book, and
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a gift certificate to Windowsill Pies!
Mardi Gras Party: Sat., Feb. 6 at 7 pm
Please join us Saturday, February 6, 7–8 pm, for a virtual Mardi Gras party!
Grab your favorite king cake or pie and a beverage and join us for a social gathering! Costumes are encouraged, but not required.
We’ll share our favorite books of 2020, our reading and writing resolutions for 2021, and give away some great prizes:
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a one-year paid subscription to Roxane Gay’s newsletter The Audacity,
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a one-year paid subscription to Jami Attenberg’s newsletter Craft Talk,
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a signed Jami Attenberg book, and
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a gift certificate to Windowsill Pies!
Current members who attend are automatically entered to win. Nonmembers may attend without entering to win, or may enter for a donation of $20. Renew or donate here. (Questions about your membership? Contact Membership Chair Sara Woodard at wnbaofnola@gmail.com.)
Open to all to attend! RSVP here.
Our next Virtual Open Mic January 14
We still have some reading slots available for our next Virtual Open Mic, now taking place Thursday, January 14 at 7:30 pm CT.
Please sign-up here to perform. We’d especially love to hear from members who haven’t yet read for the series!
Featuring: Anne Babson, Gina Ferrara, Nicole M. K. Eiden, Carolyn Hembree, and Katheryn Krotzer Laborde
Featuring: Pamela Ebel, Katheryn Krotzer Laborde, Andrea Panzeca, and Laura Mullen
1. Although non-members may attend, you must be a WNBA–NOLA member to perform.
2. Space is limited. Readers will participate in the order in which they sign-up. If we are unable to offer you a spot this time, you will be automatically registered for the next reading.
3. If you read at the previous open mic, please wait until next time before signing up again. (This is subject to change. If we don’t get enough participants, we’ll open it to all members.)
WNBA-NOLA Appoints New Board VP & Secretary
Pamela Ebel is WNBA-NOLA’s new Vice President. She was born in Northern California and raised by southern women; part of the diaspora created by the Great Depression. She returned to her roots at 21, receiving an M.A. from LSU-Baton Rouge and a JD from Loyola New Orleans. Her careers have included lawyer, university professor, law school associate dean, owner and producer of CLE programs and now, fiction writer. Her poetry has appeared in the Delta Poetry Review. A series of short stories appear in various publications. Three of her stories were published in the 2020 BOULD AWARDS anthology which launched on Amazon in November, with one of the stories taking Second Place. She is a past president of Sisters in Crime NOLA and current Director of Programming, member of SINC National and a member of the WNBA and has served for several years as a board member of WNBA NOLA. She travels between New Orleans, California, Alabama and the Mississippi Delta sharing tales from the crossroads of America. And, like the ancient Greeks and the Irish, as a southern writer she knows you can’t out run your blood.
Winifred “Wendy” Delery Hills is the newly selected Secretary. Wendy has been a voluminous reader since childhood. For the past seven years she has led a book group in New Orleans of women who for various reasons prefer to hear about books instead of reading them, so Wendy has read the books and secured authors and reviewers to present to the group. Susan Larson has come to the group for years and has helped with suggestions for speakers which is how Wendy heard about WNBA.
Besides reading, her hobbies include needlepoint and genealogy. She plans to compile books for the various lines of her and her husband’s families including more than just the family trees and DNA relatives. She is also working on transcribing letters in her husband’s family dating from 1795 through the mid-1800s and annotate them with information about those people and events mentioned therein.
A native of New Orleans, Wendy graduated from the Academy of the Sacred Heart, received a B. A. from Newcomb College and a J. D. from Tulane Law School, and practiced law in New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina forced her family to move to Fayetteville, Arkansas for 6 years. Now, she and her husband John Fleury Hills reside in Mandeville. Their son Robert lives in Nashville where he is pursuing an MBA at Vanderbilt.
Wendy has served as President of the Academy of the Sacred Heart Alumnae, Newcomb College Alumnae Association, Treasurer of the Stuart Hall Mother’s Club, a member of the PTSO board at Fayetteville High School, President of Louisiana Guardianship Services, Inc, and is an Extraordinary Minister of Communion at Mary Queen of Peace Church in Mandeville. She has also served as Treasurer of the national and international alumnae of Sacred Heart schools.
CONGRATULATIONS TO BOTH!
WNBA Writing contest now open for submissions
The WNBA Writing Contest is open for submissions of fiction, creative nonfiction, flash prose, and poetry until Dec. 10, 2020. WNBA members receive a 25% discount on the submission fee!
For more guidelines and to enter, visit: https://wnba-books.org/
Announcing Social Media Chair: Nordette Adams
We are beyond pleased to welcome Nordette Adams on board as our Social Media Chair! A mere few weeks with Nordette at the helm, and our Twitter and Facebook pages already have increased engagement. Join us in welcoming Nordette, and if you’re on social media, say hello!
Nordette N. Adams grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her poetry has appeared in Rattle Magazine’s “Poets Respond,” Quaint, About Place Journal, Scalawag Magazine, the collection Nasty Women Poets: An Anthology of Subversive Verse, and elsewhere. Her essays have been included or referenced in multiple books and journals such as the Social Issues in Literature series by Greenhaven Press, Sapphire’s Literary Breakthrough: Erotic Literacies, Feminist Pedagogies, and TAB: The Journal of Poetry and Poetics, as well as on news websites such as Blogher, HuffPost, Slate, Vox, USA Today, and the Washington Post. Currently the poetry editor of the Peauxdunque Review, she received her MA in English and her MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans in 2016. Her day job: Technology Trainer at Jefferson Parish Library.
Virtual Reading Series
The New Orleans Chapter of the Women’s National Book Association is back with our virtual reading series!
Our next reading will take place THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, at 6 PM CT. This is our Back to School edition, and as such, the theme is open. We would love to hear a variety of genres and subjects.
We invite WNBA–NOLA members to read for 5 minutes. You may share your own writing, or the work of a favorite writer.
Please note:
1. Although non-members may attend, you must be a member to perform.
2. Space is limited. Readers will participate in the order in which they sign-up. If we are unable to offer you a spot this time, you will be automatically registered for the next reading, which we expect to be in November.
3. If you read at the previous open mic, please wait until next time before signing up again. (This is subject to change. If we don’t get enough participants, we’ll open it to all members.)
If you’d like to read, let us know and we’ll send you the link to sign up. Zoom meeting ID and password will be announced the week of the reading.
Thank You Teresa!!!
This week WNBA-NOLA board members officially thanked Teresa Tumminello Brader for her long service as Secretary. She received a gift certificate to Octavia Books, a bottle of wine and a special thank you sign designed by Board President Andrea Panzeca! Teresa got a surprise socially distant visit at her home from Andrea and board members Sara Woodard, Karen Kersting and Constance Adler.