Jason Berry, an independent writer, documentary film producer and journalist who lives in New Orleans, will discuss his latest work, City of a Million Dreams, 7 p.m., Thursday, Nov. 15, at the East Bank Regional Library, 4747 W. Napoleon, Metairie. This event is co-sponsored by the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, an annual five-day literary festival that occurs in the city of New Orleans each spring. The festival is dedicated to the Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright Tennessee Williams. Every year, it features several events related to the long career of Williams, as well as writing workshops, panel discussions, literary readings, stage performances, a book fair, music, writing contests, and other events. This event is free of charge and is open to the public. In City of a Million Dreams, Berry delivers a character-driven history of New Orleans at its tricentennial. Chronicling cycles of invention, struggle, death, and rebirth, Berry reveals the city's survival as a triumph of diversity, its map-of-the-world neighborhoods marked by resilience despite hurricanes, epidemics, fires, and floods. Berry orchestrates a parade of vibrant personalities, from the founder Bienville, a warrior emblazoned with snake tattoos; to Governor William C. C. Claiborne, General Andrew Jackson, and Pere Antoine, an influential priest and secret agent of the Inquisition; Sister Gertrude Morgan, a street evangelist and visionary artist of the 1960s; and Michael White, the clarinetist who remade his life after losing everything in Hurricane Katrina. The textured profiles of this extraordinary cast furnish a narrative of the city, famous the world over for mysterious rituals. For more information regarding this presentation, contact Chris Smith, Manager of Adult Programming for the library, at 504-889-8143 or wcsmith@jefferson.lib.la.us.