New Orleans writers pen rebirth story

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NEW ORLEANS, Dec 18 (Reuters) Quirky characters, raucous music, jazz funerals, a warm climate and plenty of service-industry jobs made New Orleans an ideal base for writers and a rich backdrop for their work.

But, 16 months after Hurricane Katrina, the southern city that inspired , Tennessee Williams, John Kennedy Toole and Anne Rice risks losing its unique place on the literary landscape. The city's recovery is plodding and many writers remain in exile around the United States.

''This applies not just to literature, but to music and all of the art forms that owe something to the character of New Orleans -- they're all going to be different,'' said John Biguenet, author and English professor at Loyola University in New Orleans.

''When we talk about New Orleans culture, we're not talking about a place but a community. If the people who taught the next generation to make the gumbo, to sing the songs and sew the costumes for Mardi Gras don't come back, that's the end of that tradition.'' Novelists, poets and playwrights are struggling to save and rebuild their scene in the city that was setting for classics like Williams' ''Streetcar Named Desire,'' and Toole's ''A Confederacy of Dunces'' and Rice's popular ''Interview With the Vampire.'' Some have launched efforts to provide housing assistance and other aid for basic survival so writers can chronicle disaster and recovery in what previously was an affordable Bohemia on the Mississippi.

Six weeks after Katrina, Dave Brinks invited fellow poets to his funky French Quarter bar to read for about 250 people.

The ''Still Standing'' event at Gold Mine Saloon went long into the night despite a curfew, an early sign the storm did not wash away the city's love for the written word.

''We just closed the doors and let things keep going,'' Brinks, 39, said at the bar one recent morning. ''It was a beautiful exposition of how everyone felt at that moment.'' At the event, he and his colleagues began work to locate more than 200 writers evacuated to cities around the United States with the aim of eventually bringing them back.

''We've got to get life back so the city can do what it does,'' said Brinks, whose own house on Canal Boulevard stewed in 8 feet of dirty water after the storm.

He still hosts Thursday night readings. But the Gold Mine also serves as a community center where his colleagues can get information on medical and psychological help and other needs.