![[ DONATE ]](/wp-content/uploads/btn.becomeafriend.png){kind=small}
![[ ENTER OUR WRITING CONTESTS ]](/wp-content/uploads/btn.writingcontests.png){kind=small}
![[ BOOK ACCOMMODATIONS ]](/wp-content/uploads/btn.subscribe.png){kind=small}
Mission and Accomplishments
Mission
The Festival’s mission is threefold: to serve the community through educational, theatrical, literary, and musical programs; to nurture, support, and showcase regional, national, and international writers, actors, musicians, and other artists; and to honor the creative genius of Tennessee Williams, who considered this city his spiritual home.
The Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival is a non-profit, tax-exempt organization. Contributions are deductible according to the provision of current tax laws.
The Festival is governed by a volunteer board of directors composed of teachers, writers, book-sellers, city government personnel, corporate representatives, and television consultants. It is a 501(c)3 organization, chartered in the state of Louisiana. Funding comes from auxiliary events, fund-raising parties, corporate and individual donations, and public and private foundation donations.
Accomplishments
We don’t mean to brag, but every year the Festival:
- Brings more than 130 authors, actors, and musicians to the Festival for our five-day event.
- Provides professional writing education to more than 200 area students.
- Supports year-round literary programs in the community.
- Nurtures up-and-coming literary and theatrical talent through our contests and readings, which bring in more than 1,700 poems, short stories, and one-act plays.
- Creates a total economic impact of 1 million dollars during the five-day event.
Awards and Accolades
- Received the prestigious Louisiana Governor’s Art Award for Outstanding Nonprofit Arts Organization in 2008.
- Earned the James Patterson Page-turner Award for excellence in finding innovative and effective ways to spread the joy of reading to the public in 2006.
- Named one of the top ten literary festivals in the nation by USA Today.
