Lyle Saxon

Lyle Saxon (1891-1946) is renowned as one of Louisiana's foremost authors. He was the central figure in the state's literary community during the 1920s and 1930s and well known as a raconteur and bon vivant. He divided his time between his house in New Orleans and a cottage on the Melrose Plantation near Natchitoches. During the 1930s he headed the Louisiana WPA Writers' Project, which produced the WPA Guide to Louisiana and the WPA Guide to New Orleans. According to Chance Harvey in The Life...See more

Lyle Saxon (1891-1946) is renowned as one of Louisiana's foremost authors. He was the central figure in the state's literary community during the 1920s and 1930s and well known as a raconteur and bon vivant. He divided his time between his house in New Orleans and a cottage on the Melrose Plantation near Natchitoches. During the 1930s he headed the Louisiana WPA Writers' Project, which produced the WPA Guide to Louisiana and the WPA Guide to New Orleans. According to Chance Harvey in The Life and Selected Letters of Lyle Saxon (available from Pelican), Saxon was also the local patron to fledgling artists who flocked to him with great devotion. Edward Dreyer was the assistant state director of the Louisiana Writers' Project under the Louisiana State Library and the WPA program. As a young man in the 1940s, he worked to collect folktales from around Louisiana. Robert Tallant was one of Louisiana's best-known authors. During the last years of his life, he was a lecturer in English at Newcomb College. See less