Hurricane Katrina, Five Years Later

As a way to acknowledge the devastation that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, we published, in our January/February 2006 issue, "Begin Again: Reflections on Writing Post-Katrina," a special section of essays by authors from the New Orleans area. To mark the five-year anniversary of the catastrophic event, we've republished the essays from this section online, along with an article by New Orleans native Nicole Cooley, plus an excerpt of John Biguenet's essay “The What and the How of It,” which will appear in the book Before During After, edited by Elizabeth Kleinveld, to be published by the
University of New Orleans Press this year. These essays contribute the writer's perspective to the ongoing narrative of a national tragedy.

"Literary New Orleans, Post-Katrina" by Nicole Cooley
"The What and the How of It" by John Biguenet
"Believe It or Not" by Joshua Clark
"Finding the Right Words" by Michael Depp
"Writers, Interrupted" by Katheryn Krotzer

In 2007, Poets & Writers' Readings/Workshops program, which provides funds to organizations that pay writers to give readings and run workshops, expanded into New Orleans as a way to help strengthen the literary fabric of what had been and continues to be a vibrant literary culture. Over the past three years, we've supported over sixty events, distributing more than twelve thousand dollars to writers.