Rising Tide 6 Is August 27, So Register Today

A Conference on the Future of New Orleans

After a week of economy-strangling legislation in Congress, Wall Street plunges, and a downgrade of the nation’s credit rating, maybe you’re ready for some positive news? The Best Thing Happening—we’ll be there and we can hardly wait—is the 6th annual Rising Tide conference on the future of New Orleans on Sat. Aug. 27 at Xavier University.

Held every year since 2006 on or near the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Rising Tide brings together experts, bloggers, writers, activists, new media peeps and other ordinary folks who care about New Orleans and the Gulf Coast: the culture, the environment, the politics, the food and music, the Saints, and the rebuilding and restoration . . .

This year’s RT, with meeting space generously provided by Xavier University, will be bigger and better than ever: two very interesting keynote speakers—David Simon, creator and executive producer of HBO’s popular New Orleans drama Treme, and the brilliant N.O. geographer and acclaimed author Richard Campanella—plus two simultaneous programs: the panel discussions on one stage, and, for the first time, a Tech School focusing on social media and blogging topics (more below).

Check out the Rising Tide Facebook page and Flickr site, then click here to register.

The panels this year are on Social Media, Social Justice • Louisiana’s Coastal Health, featuring our friend Len Bahr of LaCoastPost and Pulitzer winner Bob Marshall of the Times-Picayune • New Orleans Food Writing • and Brass Bands. And, if you want to go to Tech School, you can get hands-on training in social media and blogging, learn advanced WordPress techniques, ways to improve your photography, and the latest in web strategies and online tools.

Two Must-Hear Speakers: Richard Campanella and David Simon

We are big fans of Rich Campanella (right) and his books Bienville’s Dilemma: A Historical Geography of New Orleans, New Orleans Then and Now (with Marina Campanella), and Time and Place in New Orleans. This Brooklyn-born geographer–historian–demographics geek has a rare gift for appreciating and explaining New Orleans’s neighborhoods and demographic changes as well as the city’s cultural riches and complexities. Rich will be speaking on “on the origins of how we’ve come to perceive, delineate, and name New Orleans neighborhoods.” See our write-up of his remarks at a 2009 panel discussion we attended at Loyola University, “What Is New Orleans?”

Fans of the hit HBO show Treme, set in post-Katrina New Orleans, will want to hear producer David Simon (see Salon.com’s interview with him)—also creator of HBO’s The Wire—and should check out the blogs Back of Town, many of whose writers are among the organizers of the Rising Tide conference, and Watching Treme.

Networking, Sharing Ideas, and Making Blogging Sexy

As usual, there will be a festive Friday night warm-up (location TBD), and at the conference Octavia Books will provide a literature table of the panelists’ published works available for purchase. Registration includes breakfast beverages and pastries as well as a tasty lunch prepared by J’anita’s.

“We come together to dispel myths, promote facts, highlight progress and regress, discuss recovery ideas, and promote sound policies at all levels. We aim to be a “real life” demonstration of internet activism as we continue to recover from a massive failure of government on all levels.”

Previous RT venues have been appropriately casual and informal (and much appreciated), but Xavier’s hosting of the event brings Rising Tide up to a more serious and professional level. The organizers are grateful to the university administration and to Bart “Editor B.” Everson of Xavier’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching for arranging the venue.

Past keynote speakers have included Mac McClelland (left), human rights reporter for Mother Jones; actor and filmmaker Harry Shearer; John M. Barry, author of Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America; and Christopher Cooper and Robert Block, (former) Wall Street Journal correspondents and authors of Disaster: Hurricane Katrina and the Failure of Homeland Security. Click here for past years’ lineups and panel discussions.