Second Annual “Evening with Great Authors”

We’re looking forward to the Second Annual Evening with Great Authors, hosted by the LSU Chapters of  Phi Kappa Phi and Gamma Sigma Delta!  This event will be held on February 2 from 7-8:30 p.m. and benefits  Adult Literacy Advocates of Greater Baton Rouge (ALA), a nonprofit United Way volunteer organization. LSU Press is proud to support another local nonprofit organization dedicated to the value of reading as a way to celebrate Louisiana’s vibrant literary community.

This year’s guest speakers, Thomas J. Durant, Jr., Ph.D., and Jonathan Roberts, Ph.D., will examine Louisiana’s unique charity hospital system—its genesis, evolution, and impact in our state. What led state government to create this system? How has it fared through numerous social and political changes through the decades? How has its presence impacted public health in Louisiana?  These questions are the subject matter of Durant and Roberts’s recent book, A History of the Charity Hospitals of Louisiana: A Study of Poverty, Politics, Public Health, and the Public Interest. The first complete study of Louisiana’s public hospital system, this title builds on John E. Salvaggio’s New Orleans’ Charity Hospital: A Story of Physicians, Politics, and Poverty (LSU Press, 1992), which chronicles the many struggles and accomplishments of the institution known as the “Big Free.”

Public health in Louisiana remains a central concern in today’s political debates. In particular, the broad social impact of Hurricane Katrina (2005) highlighted many civic issues in New Orleans, including those related to health care and social services.  City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina, edited by the Center for Public Integrity (LSU Press, 2007), offers journalists’ perspectives on the storm’s impact, and recommendations about how the tragedy should shape future action and policy.

We hope you’ll join us in supporting Phi Kappa Phi and Gamma Sigma Delta at this special event benefitting Adult Literacy Advocates of Greater Baton Rouge (ALA). The Second Annual Evening with Great Authors is held in the Dalton Woods Auditorium in the LSU School of the Coast & Environment building (map), at 7 – 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, February 2.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.adultliteracyadvocates.org or www.pkp.lsu.edu. All proceeds from the event will benefit ALA’s students, programs, and educational outreach services ($30 General Admission; $20 Senior; $10 Student). Refreshments will be provided.