A book lover's guide to New Orleans: 10 literary landmarks for visitors and residents

March is literary festival season in New Orleans, an embarrassment of riches with the second New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University on March 9-11, the 37th annual Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival March 22-26, and the 20th annual Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival March 24-26. It’s a reminder of what a bookish city we live in, how many writers have found inspiration and success here and how our storied past lives on in the physical landscape.

If you’re a reader, a booklover, or a history buff, here are some of our favorite literary sites to visit.

In the very heart of the French Quarter, the gemlike Faulkner House Books at 624 Pirate Alley is still open for business in the place where the Nobel laureate once lived. It’s easy to imagine William Faulkner and flatmate William Spratling having a great time together conjuring the mischief that led to the wickedly satirical book “Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles.”

If your heart has been captured by that larger-than-life character Ignatius J. Reilly, protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces,” you can pose for a photo with his statue in front of the French Quarter Hyatt Hotel at 811 Canal St. There he stands, in all his crazed glory, complete with a deerstalker hat. And if you want to go a step further, there are Lucky Dog carts to visit all over the Quarter.

Deeper in the French Quarter, you’ll find the residences of Tennessee Williams, whose “A Streetcar Named Desire” is probably the most famous literary work associated with the city. Williams often retreated to New Orleans and said he had found a “certain flexibility in my sexual nature” as well as a “spiritual home” here. Stroll past his actual homes at 620 Chartres, 722 Toulouse St., 710 Orleans and 625 St. Peter. You can even ask for his old table at Galatoire’s.

A few blocks over on Royal Street, stop in at the Hotel Monteleone at 214 Royal St. and have a drink at the world-famous Carousel Bar. (Williams favored the Brandy Alexander.) The hotel has played host to everyone from Truman Capote, who liked to say he was born there, and to Eudora Welty, whose “No Place for You, My Love” was partly set there. Check out the display of Monteleone-associated books in the hotel lobby and you’ll be tempted to check in for a writer’s retreat.

In Carrollton, the Maple Leaf Bar at 8316 Oak St. hosts what’s been called the longest running poetry reading series in the South. Every Sunday at 3 p.m., there are featured poets, but you can bring your own work to read and have a beer.

One of the most imposing Uptown buildings is St. Elizabeth’s Orphanage at 1314 Napoleon Ave. at Prytania Street, once owned by the late Gothic novelist Anne Rice, where angels still stand guard.

For a time, she housed her doll collection in a museum in the building, and her husband, poet/painter Stan Rice showed his vibrant paintings at a dedicated art gallery there.

It’s easy to imagine the Vampire Lestat Fan Club holding a grand ball in the ballroom during Rice’s glory days in her hometown.

Another major Rice residence is the legendary house at First and Chestnut, immortalized as the home of the Mayfair Witches in Rice's novel, “The Witching Hour.”

First Street was also home to the late great journalist Julia Reed, known for her sharp social commentary and her gorgeous lifestyle books, who lived right across from Rice. Reed chronicled her New Orleans adventures in a book called “The House on First Street: My New Orleans Story.”

Perhaps the most heartbreaking, poignant address in New Orleans is 4121 Wilson Ave. in the eastern part of the city. Sarah M. Broom, who received the 2019 National Book Award for her profound and moving meditation, “The Yellow House: A Memoir,” explores her long family history at this address and the tangled emotions we feel for home. It’s a vacant lot now, a ghost house, but a memory of a real New Orleans place and time.

As the local parlance goes, it “ain’t dere no more,” but the home lives on in Broom’s gorgeous book.

Arguably, the biggest literary landmark in the city is The National World War II Museum, 945 Magazine St. The museum was the brainchild of historian Stephen Ambrose, who wanted to give something back to the veterans who inspired and informed such books as “D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of War II,” “Band of Brothers” and “Citizen Soldiers,” to name a few of his many works.

Now the museum is a repository for the stories of thousands of Americans and an ever-growing monument to the Greatest Generation, as well as the leading tourist attraction in the city. Think of it — the work of a bestselling author literally transformed our city’s skyline.

As for the literary landmarks of the future, well, you can find those in the pages of books out right now, books like Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s story collection “The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You,” which captures a broad cross section of Crescent City places and people. Or Louis Edwards’ brilliant “Ramadan Ramsey,” about a young boy from New Orleans in search of his father in war-torn Syria.

Once you’ve read these books, and so many others born in New Orleans, you’ll see great characters everywhere you turn, and literary landmarks around every corner.

Susan Larson hosts The Reading Life on WWNO-FM and is the author of “The Booklover’s Guide to New Orleans.”