Fredrick Barton, director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of New Orleans, and Joanna Leake, Professor, Creative Writing Program at UNO (Fiction, Screenwriting), introduce two graduates from the program at 7 p.m. at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

Tad Bartlett writes fiction, poetry, and essays. His photography and essays have appeared in a semi-monthly series on the website of the Oxford American, as well as in the Mobile Press-Register and the Selma Times-Journal. His short stories have been cited for Honorable Mention in the February 2013 Glimmer Train Short Story Award for New Writers, and placed as finalists in the 2012 and 2013 William Faulkner-William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition. His poetry was a finalist in the 2011 Faulkner-Wisdom competition; and an essay was a finalist in the 2010 Faulkner-Wisdom competition. Bartlett is a founding member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance. He works as a lawyer for a firm in New Orleans.

Casey Lefante earned an MFA from The Creative Writing Workshop at The University of New Orleans, where she served as Associate and Fiction Editor for Bayou Magazine. Her work has appeared in Third Coast, Zone 3, Fwriction:Review, Slush Pile, and The Atlantis Now. Her novel was short-listed for the William Faulkner Novel-in-Progress contest, which made her pretty happy once she figured out what short-listing meant. She currently teaches English at an all-girls high school in New Orleans.