2024 TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL

If you missed MAURICE CARLOS RUFFIN’s spectacular launch last night of his new novel, The American Daughters, here in New Orleans, then don’t despair. You can catch him next month at the 2024 Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival, where he’ll join our panel “Creating the Writer’s City.” With Maurice to talk about why … Read more

First Full Moon of 2023

Catch the first full Moon of 2023 this weekend, January 6-8. It goes by many different traditional names–the Wolf Moon, the Cold Moon, the Hard Moon, the Great Moon, the Spirit Moon. Here’s a new favorite, though: the Stay Home Moon.

Hope you’ll enjoy it, wherever you are.

From Driftwood Designs, illustrated by Lizzie Spikes in Aberystwyth and printed in Wales.

Election Day Blood Moon Eclipse

Tuesday, November 7, a total lunar eclipse will be visible in North America, Central America, Colombia, and western Venezuela and Peru. It’ll begin just before sunrise and will last about an hour and a half.

From the NPR article below:

The phenomenon causes the moon to appear red, often nicknamed a “blood moon.” During a lunar eclipse, what little sunlight that’s left passes through Earth’s atmosphere to get to the moon. The more cloudy or dusty the atmosphere is, the redder the moon looks.

“It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the Moon,” NASA said.

A total lunar eclipse is happening Tuesday — and it won’t happen again for 3 years

NPR

Nov. 7, 2022

Ayana Archie

A total lunar eclipse is happening Tuesday, and it might be a good time to catch a peek, because the next one isn’t for three years.

The initial phase of the eclipse begins at 3:02 a.m. ET, according to NASA. The partial eclipse then begins at 4:09 a.m. ET, when to the naked eye, it looks like a bite is being taken out of the moon. The lunar disk enters totality at 5:17 a.m. ET and will last for about an hour and a half.

People in North America, Central America, Colombia, and western Venezuela and Peru will be able to see the eclipse in totality. Those in Alaska and Hawaii will be able to see all stages of the eclipse.

For the best view, it is best to be in a dark area with little light pollution.

A lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth and moon align. During a full lunar eclipse, the moon falls completely in the Earth’s shadow.

The phenomenon causes the moon to appear red, often nicknamed a “blood moon.” During a lunar eclipse, what little sunlight that’s left passes through Earth’s atmosphere to get to the moon. The more cloudy or dusty the atmosphere is, the redder the moon looks.

“It’s as if all the world’s sunrises and sunsets are projected onto the Moon,” NASA said.

The next full lunar eclipse will occur on March 14, 2025, but there will be partial lunar eclipses before then, according to NASA.

Orionid Meteor Shower This Weekend, Oct 21 – 23

 
Don’t be alarmed if you see balls of fire in the sky this weekend. 
 
“The Orionid meteor shower is active from Sept. 26 to Nov. 22, with a peak during the early morning hours of Friday, Oct. 21. NASA says this shower is considered “one of the most beautiful meteor showers of the year,” known for bright, fast shooting stars that leave long trails glowing in their wake.”
 
More here and below.  Enjoy.
 

Stunning meteor shower from Halley’s Comet to light up night skies  

The Orionid meteor shower is active from Sept. 26 to Nov. 22, with a peak during the early morning hours of Friday, Oct. 21. NASA says this shower is considered “one of the most beautiful meteor showers of the year,” known for bright, fast shooting stars that leave long trails glowing in their wake. 

Fast meteors like the Orionids can sometimes even leave “fireballs,” or longer explosions of light.

Read on to learn about the shower and how to watch it. 

What are the Orionids? 

This meteor shower is caused by space debris from what could be the best-known comet ever: Halley’s Comet, which takes 76 years to orbit the Sun just once. It hasn’t been seen by casual Earth stargazers since 1986. NASA says it’ll return in 2061, if you want to add that to your calendar. 

The comet is named for English astronomer Edmond Halley, who correctly predicted its return. 

Halley’s Comet sheds streams of ice and dust every time it circles back through the inner solar system, leading to two different yearly meteor showers. 

“The Eta Aquarids are the outbound particles of Halley’s comet and the Orionids are the inbound,” American Meteor Society editor Robert Lunsford said, adding that both showers have a nearly two-month active period. “Halley’s Comet has been through the inner solar system so many times, a lot of the particles have spread out.”

Estimates for how many meteors you could see per hour vary, with NASA predicting 15 and AMS estimating 10 to 20. Due to the long active period for the Orionids, those peak rates are expected to last longer than for other showers. 

“That’s what’s different about this long period shower — it has a plateau-like maximum,” Lunsford said. “So if you miss the night of maximum activity, the night after and even a couple of nights after that is well worth watching.”

The Orionids meteor shower has a history of surprising its viewers. AMS says in 2006 to 2009, the shower’s peak rates rivaled that of the stunning Perseids, which can average 50 to 75 meteors per hour.

How to watch the meteor shower this week

The Orionids will peak in the early morning hours between Thursday and Friday. 

NASA recommends watching in the hours between midnight and dawn, well away from city lights if possible. A lawn chair or sleeping bag will help you stay cozy as your eyes adapt to the darkness — this takes about 30 minutes. As experienced stargazers know, some patience will come in handy. 

“Watch for at least an hour… Because there’s peaks and valleys of activity, a in all meteor showers,” Lunsford said. “You could be out there at the wrong time and see nothing. And then during the next five or 10 minute period, you’ll see all kinds of activity.”

Buck Supermoon this Wednesday, July 13

This Wednesday the moon will be at its closest point to the Earth for the year–the “Buck Supermoon.”  More info below from Space.com.  

Don’t Miss the Biggest ‘Supermoon’ of the Year on July 13

On Wednesday (July 13), the moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth for 2022.

 

A supermoon in the dusk sky. (Image credit: Getty)

On Wednesday (July 13) at 5 a.m. EDT (09:00 GMT), the moon will arrive at its closest point to the Earth for 2022: a perigee distance of 221,994 miles (357,264 kilometers) away. 

Nine hours and 38 minutes later, the moon will officially turn full. Though full moon theoretically lasts just a moment, that moment is imperceptible to ordinary observation, and for a day or so before and after most will speak of seeing the nearly full moon as “full”: The shaded strip is so narrow, and changing in apparent width so slowly, that it is hard for the naked eye to tell whether it’s present or which side it is on.  

So, when the moon shines down on your neighborhood on Wednesday night, keep this in mind: What you’re looking at is not precisely a full moon, but a waning gibbous moon, already many hours past its stage of full illumination. . . .

 

JACKSON: New Novel

I’m happy to announce that I’ve signed with super agent Lisa Bankoff to represent my new novel, JACKSON.  This has been a long time in coming so, yeah, I’m pleased.  I’ll post any updates here.  Meantime, here’s the pitch, in case you’re curious:

 

 

JACKSON takes its title from the small town of Jackson, Louisiana.  The town’s best known as the site of the state’s first public mental hospital, and it was there, as the son of a psychiatrist, that I grew up, living and roaming on the grounds of the old asylum, hearing the screams of the patients at night.  That unusual childhood experience provided the inspiration for this story.

JACKSON is a modern-day Frankenstein tale set against the backdrop of shocking, real-life brain implant experiments conducted on patients in Louisiana public mental hospitals in the 1960s.  Told from the shifting points of view of Dr. Eugene Grant, a newly trained psychiatrist, and his young wife, Callie, the novel follows the couple and their son as they settle into a home on the grounds of Louisiana State Hospital, an immense, antiquated asylum in a remote corner of the state. Eugene, in thrall to the charismatic director of the hospital, is drawn deeper and deeper into the bizarre and bloody experiments they perform on their patients.  At the same time, Callie grows increasingly suspicious of her husband’s work until, in a harrowing climax, she becomes a patient herself.

With shades of Southern Gothic, JACKSON also looks forward to contemporary issues of racism, sexism, and society’s treatment of its most vulnerable citizens, all the while grappling with the larger question of what it means to be sane in an insane world.