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BATON ROUGE, La. — The Louisiana Center for the Book's annual Women's History Month program will focus on the life and work of Ellen Gilchrist, a Southern writer known for her novels, short stories, and poetry, several of which were set in New Orleans. "The Dreamy Dreamer: Ellen Gilchrist's Life in Stories" will be presented by Tracy Carr, a researcher, writer, and editor. The virtual program will be available on YouTube and Facebook on Thursday, March 13, 2025.
Ellen Gilchrist was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1935. She was a novelist and short story writer known for her independent Southern women characters, including Rhoda Manning, whose biography echoes Gilchrist's own life. From her column in the Franklin Favorite newspaper as a teenager in Kentucky to her thirteen short-story collections and seven novels, Gilchrist's voice remained inimitable.
While a native of Mississippi and resident of Arkansas for much of her life, Gilchrist lived for more than a decade in New Orleans, where she became a contributing editor at the Vieux Carré Courier, a newspaper focused on the French Quarter. She set much of her literary work in the city, including her first novel, The Annunciation.
"She won the National Book Award in 1984 for her story collection Victory Over Japan. But it was her first collection, In the Land of Dreamy Dreams (1981), that was in some ways most characteristic, in its depiction of the fissures and pathologies of the New Orleans upper class," The New York Times wrote upon her death in 2024. "She considered it her best work."
Gilchrist was among the featured authors at the 2015 Louisiana Book Festival. She spoke about Acts of God, a collection of short stories.
Carr's look into Gilchrist's life and work will include an overview of her family of characters, audio and video clips from interviews, and a summary of literary criticism on her work.
Carr manages and edits the Mississippi Book Page for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, and is the editor of Conversations with Ellen Gilchrist, forthcoming from the University Press of Mississippi.
The Louisiana Center for the Book, established in the State Library of Louisiana in 1994 for the purpose of stimulating public interest in reading, books, literacy, and libraries and celebrating Louisiana’s rich literary heritage, is the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book. For more information, please visit LouisianaBookFestival.org and follow us on Facebook.