When Books Are Your Life
ABOUT
Books are my life--they’re my work and my passion. I have a Ph.D. in Southern/American literature, am an English professor, and a Eudora Welty scholar (and fan). Much of my academic writing focuses on her short fiction.
I'm also the publicist for the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival and the Saints and Sinners LGBTQ+ Literary Festival and editor of the southern culture magazines, Louisiana Life and Acadiana Profile.
My short stories, one of which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize, have appeared in South 85 Journal, Deep South Magazine, The Arkansas Review, and Acentos Review. When Books Are Your Life, my short story collection, will be published March 2, 2027 by Mercer University Press.
BOOK
When Books Are Your Life (Mercer University Press, March 2027)
When Books are Your Life is a linked short story collection that explores the desires, isolation, and separateness of characters living in New Orleans and the nearby fictional town of Harmon.
Within these twelve stories that all revolve around books, there are a frustrated librarian, mothers and daughters locked in constant battle, a book club leader who doesn’t even read the books she chooses, a young boy trying to protect his mother, a writer who steals bits of people’s lives for her stories, and a janitor who repairs old books while trying to keep his family close. Appearing in several stories is librarian Eleanor Reed, who is devastated at being forced into retirement and must figure out how to navigate the rest of her life and her changed relationship with books.
While these quiet characters grapple with life’s challenges in a harsh world, the thread that runs through all of the stories is a love of or need for books. The power of words and stories, the beauty of books themselves, the deep-seated passion readers share--all of these things enable characters to find solace, meaning, and connection. This collection is full of everyday stories that are tender and at times, heartbreaking, but each contains a promise of hope, often arising from the books and the comfort characters find in each other.
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR WHEN BOOKS ARE YOUR LIFE
"When Books are Your Life is abuzz with voices. Dugas channels the once-and-future librarians, musicians, busybodies, and frightened little boys of her South Louisiana, conjuring community between the collection’s covers. Dugas’ debut is sensitive and evocative, probing the quiet corners of humanity for the concealed failings and secret needs of a cast of recurring characters bound together by a common love of books."
-C. Morgan Babst, author of The Floating World
"When Books Are Your Life is a wonderful linked-stories celebration of gritty New Orleans, and characters’ needs for finding a meaningful life. The people here want more. We hold these characters in a giant hug. What a great, memorable experience, spending time with these people."
George Singleton, author of Wounded Boarders
"Reine Dugas has written a love letter to books in all their glorious forms; as objects, careers, dreams, secrets, and escapes. In a collection that reads like a novel, Dugas expertly weaves the importance of books through several recurring characters’ lives, from the elderly to the young, the rich to the disenfranchised. The stories are full of longing and regret, promise and betrayal. Set in and around New Orleans, one of the most literary cities on Earth, Dugas’ stories are as varied as the place itself. If you love books, you’ll undoubtedly find yourself in the””se pages, and you might be surprised at which character you are. I loved it."
M.O. Walsh, New York Times bestselling author of My Sunshine Away, The Big Door Prize and L3K
"When Books are Your Life is an entrancing peek into complicated, interwoven lives: people’s relationships with books, one another, and New Orleans. Each story brims with imagination, longing, and wit. I fell in love with these characters and know they will keep kicking around in my head for a long, long time."
-Marguerite Sheffer, author of The Man in the Banana Trees