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LSU faculty and authors Judy Kahn (left) and Nolde Alexius are keepers of the flame of LSU’s rich literary heritage, including the new anthology Best of LSU Fiction. (Photos courtesy LSU Press)

Never has there been a seminal text that collected and connected the work of writers influenced by LSU, one that charted their relationships and influences on each other. Until now.

Best of LSU Fiction, edited by faculty members Nolde Alexius and Judy Kahn, is a who’s who of our literary lights. The inspiration was Kahn’s long-running course The Fiction of LSU, in which she taught stories by writers associated with the school to enliven her students’ experience. Often, she invited those writers to read their work in class, as was the case with Alexius, a new instructor with a master’s degree from George Mason University. Soon, Alexius was teaching sections of the popular course, and the two imagined a textbook for it. It quickly became apparent the book had broader appeal to the general public as well.

“When we applied Robert Penn Warren’s significant impact as a structure for all we knew it was inevitable that we use chronological order,” Alexius says. Enriching that order, each writer’s bio outlines his or her relationships—with the school and with each other—creating a broad community that reaches from Warren in the beginning of the 20th century to the close of the first decade of a new century with Olympia Vernon.

The book is introduced by James Wilcox and closes with one of his stories. Wilcox was a student of Warren’s at Yale and now serves as the director of LSU’s creative writing program. There he continues the tradition Warren began at LSU.

In between Warren and Wilcox, readers will find more of what Kahn calls the “LSU canon,” consisting of 20 stories by writers influenced by their Baton Rouge time and all the writers before them who came to LSU. Included are works by Peter Taylor, Jean Stafford, Charles East, David Madden, Rebecca Wells, Valerie Martin, Walker Percy, John Ed Bradley, Andrei Codrescu and others.

Already, there is talk of a second volume. Kahn says, “I wanted Alexius’ story ‘Hush in This Heat,’ which appeared in The Southern Review included this time.” Kahn herself continues writing a book of poetry, and Alexius is working through a novel trilogy. The legacy endures.

Kahn and Alexius appear with LSU creative writing professor James Gordon Bennett for a 4 p.m. reading Sunday, Aug. 22 at the Baton Rouge Gallery.