Four regular readings in Baton Rouge this week—something for every humor!

For the choleric, Readers and Writers offers a larger scale of reading with an excellent array of professional writers recognized internationally. The Underpass offer indulgence for all the sanguine appetites: innovative local poets and prosers, amazing food, and an excellent bar. The melancholic will find comfort (and caffeine) at the Highland Coffees Reading Series, and may they emerge better for it. The River is the only place for the phlegmatic and the nocturnal.

In addition, Perks Coffee and Tea hosts a St. Patrick’s Day Irish Writers’ Celebration & Reading for all the acknowledged hiberniophiles (the supine, ha) out there. All these readings are free and open to the public, but do yourself and the kind people who host you a favor and buy some coffee/beer/books.

RIVER WRITERS | march 16th | 9 pm | boudreaux and thibodeaux’s (balcony bar)
Contact: Vincent Cellucci 

Night-owls:
James Claffey 
Maureen Foley
Andrew Banecker

IRISH WRITERS’ CELEBRATION & READING | march 17th | 7:30 pm | perks coffee
Contact: James Claffey 

Irish people:
Bill Yeats
George Shaw
Sam Beckett 
James Claffey (double-header)

HIGHLAND COFFEES READING SERIES | march 18th | 6 pm | highland coffees
Contact: Laura Smith 

LSU Undergrads:
Laura Smith
Jalissa Bates
Lindsey Hopton
Jade Benoit

THE UNDERPASS | march 18th | 7pm | chelsea’s cafe (small bar)
Contact: Susan Kirby-Smith 

LSU 2nd Year MFAs:
Lauren Tussing-White
William Burke
John David Harding
James Claffey (triple-header!)

READERS & WRITERS | march 21st | 5 pm | dodson auditorium (on the lsu quad)
Contact: Maureen Foley

LSU Alumni Authors:
Clarence Nero
Ethan Gilsdorf

“In celebration of the University’s Sesquicentennial and the MFA program’s first 25 years, novelist Clarence Nero brings his bold urban fiction (praised by Maya Angelou) to the Dodson Auditorium. In New Orleans, Nero grew up in the infamous Desire Housing Project surrounded by drugs, violence and poverty. His first novel, Cheekie: A Child Out of the Desire, is loosely based on his childhood experiences. The book was selected as “One of the Best First Novels of 1998,” by Library Journal. His screenplay “Temptations of Desire” was recommended to Sundance Lab by Jonathan Demme, Academy Award Winning Director of “Silence of the Lambs” and “Beloved.” Nero’s second novel, “Three Sides To Every Story” was endorsed by the late E. Lynn Harris, who the author credits for jump starting his career in mainstream publishing. Nero has an MFA in Creative Writing from Louisiana State University. He teaches at the Baton Rouge Community College. Visit http://www.clarencenero.com.

Joining Nero is Ethan Gilsdorf, whose gaming memoir Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms, has been called “poignant and hilarious…disturbing and entertaining.” After playing Dungeons & Dragons religiously in the 1970s and 1980s, and getting an MFA in poetry from LSU, Ethan Gilsdorf went on to become a poet, teacher, and journalist. He’s worked as a freelance correspondent, guidebook writer, and film and restaurant reviewer. Now based in Somerville, Massachusetts, his travel, arts, and pop culture stories appear regularly in the New York Times , Boston Globe, and Christian Science Monitor, and have been published in other magazines and newspapers including National Geographic Traveler , Psychology Today, and the Washington Post. You can follow Ethan’s adventures at http://www.ethangilsdorf.com.”