ALL RIGHT. BRANDI. THANK YOU. STARTING TONIGHT, THE NEW ORLEANS BOOK FESTIVAL RETURNS TO TULANE UNIVERSITY. AND BY THE NUMBERS, THIS YEAR’S EVENT WILL BE BIGGER AND BETTER THAN EVER. MORE THAN 200 AUTHORS WILL PARTICIPATE IN 90 PANELS. AND THAT’S NOT ALL. EVERY SPRING, THE CAMPUS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY TRANSFORMS INTO A LABYRINTH FOR LITERARY LOVERS. BOOKS, I THINK, ARE MAGICAL BECAUSE THEY ALLOW PEOPLE TO TO EXPLORE THE WORLD. CHERYL LANDRIEU IS AN AUTHOR OF SORTS. SHE HAD AN IDEA IN HER HEAD TO BIND BOOK LOVERS TOGETHER, NOT ON A PAGE, BUT THROUGH PANELS. IN THE BEGINNING, IT WAS A FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN, BUT OVER THE YEARS HAS GROWN INTO A MULTI-DAY FEST, ATTRACTING BESTSELLING AUTHORS, POLITICAL HEAVYWEIGHTS, WELL-KNOWN JOURNALISTS, EVEN CHEFS. FOR A WHILE PEOPLE WERE SAYING, OH, BOOKS ARE OVER. YOU KNOW, EVERYBODY’S INTO THEIR PHONES. AND NOW THAT’S NOT TRUE. WE HAVE PROVEN THAT NOT TO BE TRUE, THAT THERE’S A LOT OF EXCITEMENT ABOUT PEOPLE WHO READ BOOKS AND THEN LIKE TO TALK ABOUT WHAT THEY’VE READ WITH OTHER BOOK LOVERS. THE NEW ORLEANS BOOK FESTIVAL IS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY FOR LOCAL AUTHORS, SOME WHO TEACH AT TULANE, TO SHARE THEIR WORK WITH A WIDER AUDIENCE. AND FOR ME, IT’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO THINK ABOUT WHY DOES DISCIPLINES LIKE SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, WHY DO THEY MATTER TO JUST GENERAL AUDIENCES AND THE BOOK FESTIVAL, RIGHT, CREATES THAT TYPE OF SPACE, REMINDING ALL OF US, BIG AND SMALL, THE POWER OF PROSE. SO IF WE’RE LOOKING AT DATA, NO ONE LOOKS AT THE RAW DATA. THEY LOOK, THEY LISTEN TO THE STORY I TELL ABOUT THE DATA. AND SO I THINK STORIES CONNECT WITH THOSE INTIMATE PIECES OF US WHERE WHERE WE REMEMBER FAMILY HISTORIES, WE REMEMBER POLITICAL MOMENTS THROUGH NARRATIVES, THROUGH STORIES. AND THE BEST PART? THAT BOOK FESTIVAL IS COMPLETELY FREE. AND GET THIS, THE JOURNALIST WITH THE ATLANTIC WHO WAS ADDED TO THAT NATIONAL SECURITY GROUP TEXT, WILL BE SPEAKING TONIGHT AT THE BOOK FESTIVAL TO SEE T