Poet Julie Kane to Receive 26th Louisiana Writer Award

BATON ROUGE, La. - The Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library of Louisiana proudly announces Julie Kane, celebrated poet and longtime educator, as the recipient of the 26th Louisiana Writer Award. The award is given annually by the Center to recognize outstanding contributions to Louisiana`s literary and intellectual life exemplified by a contemporary Louisiana writer`s body of work.

Kane, the 2011-2013 Louisiana Poet Laureate and professor emerita of English at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, was born in Boston but has spent nearly half a century working in and writing about Louisiana.

"It's the greatest honor of my life to get an award that has gone to Ernest Gaines, Yusef Komunyakaa, James Lee Burke, Shirley Ann Grau, and so many of the writers I have always looked up to," said Julie Kane about receiving the award. "Next year will make 50 years that I've lived here. I've always wondered if I could be considered a real Louisiana writer having not grown up here. It means so much to me since I love Louisiana and this is my home."

Writing about Kane for The Times-Picayune, critic Mary McKay said, "To read her poetry is to live briefly in New Orleans and other parts of Louisiana - to feel the heat, the air, the water, the fire, the life here."

"Julie Kane's devotion to Louisiana and its literary heritage is hard to match. She has dedicated so many years of her life to our state, from teaching generations of Louisianans to serving as the poet laureate," said Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser. "She`s a versatile writer with nonfiction and editing of several collections to her credit. The Louisiana Writer Award was tailor-made for someone like Julie."

Kane has written six books of poetry, including Rhythm & Booze, winner of the National Poetry Series; Jazz Funeral, winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize; Mothers of Ireland, winner of the Poetry by the Sea Book Award; and Paper Bullets, a lighthearted collection of humorous poems. New in 2025 from LSU Press is Naked Ladies: New and Selected Poems. Her first full-length poetry collection, Body and Soul, was from Pirogue Publishing, a small press founded by the owners of the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans.

Kane became the first woman to hold the George Bennett Fellowship in Writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. That was followed by the move to Louisiana, where she earned a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University and became a professor herself. In 1995 and 1999 she served as New Orleans Writer-in-Residence at Tulane University. Kane retired from Northwestern in 2016. During her time there, she was awarded a prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to teach for a semester at Vilnius Pedagogical University in Lithuania.

"Julie Kane is a poet I will never tire of reading. Her technical mastery never gets in the way of her 'reports on being' that are by turns poignant, funny, moving, and disarmingly beautiful," said Darrell Bourque, the 2014 Louisiana Writer Award recipient and state poet laureate from 2009-2011.

"I am thrilled to see Julie Kane recognized as the 2025 Louisiana Writer Award recipient, though she has always been a major writer to me," said current Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin. "The footprints of Julie Kane's influence march through every step of my life as a poet. I can think of no one more deserving of the honor."

Poet Dave Smith, editor of the Southern Messenger Poets series at LSU Press which published Kane's last two poetry collections, had this to say about her Louisiana Writer Award: "I think what makes her special, and welcome, is a wicked sense of humor and a braided intelligence whose continual function is to say, hey, listen man, and as it may be - you got to lighten up! Her poems are like elegant hands at our cheeks, sometimes consoling, sometimes slapping, sometimes embracing us."

The Louisiana Writer Award will be presented to Kane during the annual ceremony at the Louisiana Book Festival on Saturday, November 1, in Baton Rouge. Visit the Louisiana Writer Award webpage for more information about Kane and her work.

Learn more about the 21st Louisiana Book Festival at LouisianaBookFestival.org as the year progresses and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter).

The Louisiana Center for the Book was established in the State Library of Louisiana in 1994 to promote interest in reading, books, literacy, and libraries, and to celebrate Louisiana`s rich literary heritage. It is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book.