Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival

For 37 years, TWFest has brought award-winning writers, historians, scholars, journalists, actors, musicians, and cultural experts together to present five days of literary revelry in New Orleans. Thousands of book and theatre lovers come to New Orleans from all over the country and abroad for our writer's craft sessions, literary panels, theatre events, literary walking tours, culinary events, author interviews, and music events. There are also contests offering prizes for the best one-act play, fiction, poetry, and more.
And, of course, no Tennessee Williams Festival would be complete without the popular “Stella!” shouting contest held in the French Quarter. Hopeful winners, usually attired in Stanley Kowalski-style sleeveless undershirts, compete to shout the most plaintive and convincing appeal to the judges on the balcony of the Pontalba Apartments on Jackson Square. And, in the interest of fairness, women contestants are allowed to shout “Stanley!”

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