637. Kiona Walker LeMalle

637. It's been 20 years this month since Hurricane Katrina, and we're marking the anniversary this August and September. Today, we talk to Kiona Walker LeMalle about her Katrina-themed novel, Behind the Waterline. The novel takes readers to the home of a teenager and his grandmother in a New Orleans neighborhood on the eve of Katrina, where there are few resources and little warning of what is about to happen, in this novel that mixes magical realism with reality. When Hurricane Katrina approaches New Orleans, teenaged Eric and his grandmother and many of their neighbors decide to ride out the storm. Kionna Walker LeMalle's masterful debut novel brings her readers, like the rising water, onto Eric's street in the Third Ward, where stranded dogs bark for a time, where neighbors are floating on doors, and where Eric and his grandmother must take refuge in his second floor bedroom. After days of heat, dwindling supplies, and relentless rising water, neighbors begin to disappear and Eric's grandmother, already known as an eccentric, begins to falter. It is then that Eric--in a dream, a hallucination, or something else--discovers a room beyond his closet wall, a place he has never seen. What he discovers inside will send him on a path to discover secrets to survival, bitter progress, and, ultimately, the history of his own people--those he sorely misses and those he never even knew.

1. Now available: Liberty in Louisiana: A Comedy. The oldest play about Louisiana, author James Workman wrote it as a celebration of the Louisiana Purchase. Now it is back in print for the first time in 221 years. Order your copy today!
   
2. This week in Louisiana history. August 2, 1899. Fire sweeps through part of Lake Charles causing over $50,000 damage.
   
3. This week in New Orleans history. First Saints game, August 2, 1967. The Saints lost to the Los Angeles Rams, 16-7, at Anaheim Stadium in the Saints first pre-season game.  The Saints 1967 pre-season record was 5-1. Their regular-season record was 3-11.
   
4. This week in Louisiana.
   NOLA Pickle Fest
   August 6-10, 2025
   New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
   900 Convention Center Blvd.
   New Orleans, LA 70130
   Website
       NOLA Pickle Fest (the game, not the food), benefiting the Brees Dream Foundation, returns August 6-10, 2025. This unique, festival-style pickleball tournament will feature 24 tournament-quality PickleRoll courts, live music, a celebrity exhibition match, VIP experiences, and much more.
       There are three divisions of round-robin play: Women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and mixed doubles for skill levels 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0+. There are two brackets to compete in: Open & 40+ years old. Featured matches will be played on a center court with grandstand seating as well as Kern Studio Mardi Gras floats for VIP viewing.
   
5. Postcards from Louisiana. Delfeayo Marsalis & the Uptown Jazz Orchestra at French Quarter Fest.

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