The Writing Life – Hungry for Louisiana

Cajun, Crawfish, My Book Shelf, The Writing Life

How Louisiana got to TV writer and “Plantation Shudders” author Ellen Byron

Television writer and novelist Ellen Byron is a Louisiana junkie.

The New York native and Tulane University graduate, who now lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter, can’t get the Bayou State out of her system, admitting that she sheds tears of joy when she visits New Orleans and tears of sadness when she leaves. In 2015, Byron sunk all that residual Louisiana passion into a new mystery novel, Plantation Shudders, a fun and breezy jaunt with nods to classic inn murders (which guest is really the baddie?), except told in modern day Cajun Country. The second in the series, Body on the Bayou, will be released in September 2016.

I especially appreciated the heroine’s name, Maggie, short for Magnolia, bringing back memories of me trying to buffalo college friends in Washington, DC, that my real name was a southern flower and not the truer, dowdier Margaret.

Ellen and I discovered each other recently, and had a great time connecting and sharing notes as writers inspired by Louisiana. I picked up her book and read it over one weekend, relishing her depictions of my zany adopted home. Here’s some of what we discussed.

Louisiana, My Book Shelf, New Orleans, The Writing Life

The Book Shelf: A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook fuses food and fiction

“May I select my own?” Ignatius asked, peering down over the top of the pot. In the boiling water the frankfurters swished and lashed like artificially colored and magnified paramecia. Ignatius filled his lungs with the pungent, sour aroma. “I shall pretend that I am in a smart restaurant and that this is the lobster pond.”

– A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

Few books capture real New Orleans and its quirks like the Pulitzer Prize-winning, A Confederacy of Dunces. Set in the early 1960s, the satirical novel covers the misadventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, an overeducated bombast who can’t seem to move out of his childhood bedroom, and who writes manifestos and suffers from chronic flatulence.

I first read this book when I was considering moving to Louisiana shortly after college. At the time, I was living in Miami, and had been dating a guy who lived in Baton Rouge. Once on a visit, I found the novel on his bookshelf and gave it a whirl. It was deliciously insane, and even though I didn’t fully get the cultural references, I could not put it down.

Fast forward to this year, 2015 — the 35th anniversary of the book’s publication by the LSU Press. I had indeed moved to Baton Rouge way back when, and while that particular relationship didn’t last, I stayed. Louisiana became my home. I re-read the book this spring, and it was full-circle fun. I had a completely new appreciation for “jambalaya with shrimps” and Lucky Dogs.

One of the reasons I read it again this year was because my friend and fellow LSU Press author, Cynthia LeJeune Nobles, was finishing her A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook (LSU Press).

I couldn’t wait to see what she came up with.

(Update: Cindy was interviewed on NPR’s Morning Edition on Dec 4. Check out the interview here.)

Holiday, The Writing Life

My secret date with cornbread dressing

Ahh, the holiday rotation. Years ago, my hubby and I put a system in place that divvied up the holidays as fairly as possible among the grandparents, none of whom live here in Baton Rouge. I won’t bore you with the drama (you can probably relate), I’ll just share the result. For the last 15 years, the system has pretty much had us traveling to someone else’s house for Thanksgiving, while we host Christmas. I love planning and hosting the Christmas meal, but I have to admit, I miss the opportunity to cook — really cook — traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Sure, we bring stuff. But it’s minor. The main meal, and especially the dressing, is claimed by our family’s various Thanksgiving hosts. And you gotta respect territoriality, especially where cornbread dressing is involved.

Hungry for Louisiana, My Book Shelf, The book, The Writing Life

Hungry for Louisiana, A Omnivore’s Journey featured at Southern Festival of Books

Nashville is cool for lots of reasons, one of which is the Southern Festival of Books, started in 1988 by Humanities Tennessee and held every fall on the state capital grounds downtown. These days it attracts 250,000 book lovers and an impressive line-up of authors. I’m so proud to have been part of the 2015 festival, and for my book to now be carried by Nashville’s Parnassus Books, the incredible independent bookstore co-founded by writer Ann Patchett in 2011.

The Writing Life

The cheap thrill of a clean office

I did something bad. Bad bad. I have this great office all to myself attached to our garage — perfect creative space surrounded by fruit trees with its own door (that locks), a clean tile floor and Tuscan yellow walls. And for the first half of this year, I junked it up so much that there was no room for me to work or think in it. Shameful. It was swallowed up by one errant pile of stuff after another, until I lost command of getting it back. Continue Reading…

Hungry for Louisiana, Louisiana, LSU, The Writing Life

About artist Betsy Neely, Hungry for Louisiana, An Omnivore’s Journey illustrator

I’m so grateful to Louisiana artist Betsy Neely for creating the charming original black & white drawings that lead off each chapter in Hungry for Louisiana, An Omnivore’s Journey. Betsy and I had a great time connecting over this project. Our process was to meet and discuss the tone and intention of each chapter, and in those meetings, I shared some of the things that stood out most during my research. As we talked, a single image would generally emerge between the two of us that seemed to sum it all up. Then Betsy would head off to her studio to start sketching.

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