I was working on my website, and then happened to google my name, basically checking my meta-tags and well here's what I found.
New Orleans’ family is rallying around the city
By GREG LANGLEY
Books editor
Published: Jan 15, 2006
New Orleans is like a fighter who has been knocked out and is slowly awakening with an aching head. The city has definitely been beaten in a fight, but it’s not dead, just wounded. New Orleans’ family is rallying around the city, including its literary family.
A new paperback book exploits that very theme. My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers (Touchstone Books, $13) is a collection of essays about the city written by three categories of writers: its sons, its daughters and its lovers. Sons include notables such as Wynton Marsalis and Christopher Rice. Daughters include Ellen Brennan, Poppy Z. Brite, Charmaine Neville. Lovers — not native New Orleanians but writers who have come to love the Crescent City — include Andre Codrescu, Rick Bragg, Julie Smith, Robert Olen Butler, Bret Lott, Roy Blount Jr., and many others. These short pieces include first person essays, opinion pieces, poetry and short fiction. All pay homage to New Orleans and seek to recreate the sights, sounds and smells washed away in Katrina’s floodwaters. The writing is of the highest quality and according to the cover, a portion of the proceeds from this book will benefit The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and PEN America Center’s Writer’s Fund.
Phillip Collier’s Missing New Orleans (The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, $39.95) was scheduled for publication before the storm hit. In fact workers at the Ogden Museum had to rescue galleys of the book from threatening flood waters. Only 4,000 copies of this nearly square ( approximately 9Ø by 9Ø ), softcover history and photography study were produced, but later editions include an added section which shows the fate of some of the historic buildings featured in the first proofs. The title was chosen before so much of the city was destroyed and has become a kind of mantra for those who love the city and are working to restore it. The vintage photographs include images of everything from the Dueling Oak to the Fairgrounds Racetrack to public buildings to street vendors and burlesque dancers. It’s a slice of New Orleans that had already partly vanished before the storm but now exists only in these photographs. There isn’t a trace of some of these buildings now.
Another collection of essays and Chicken Soup-type anecdotes, Stories of Strength (published by writer of Abolutewrite.com, $15.95 softcover), benefits “Disaster Relief Charities,” according to the cover. Few of these writers are likely to be recognized by the average reader but they produce short, first person-type fiction stories or personal essays or poems that are draw from the writers’ own experience and are designed to be inspirational or uplifting. Two Louisiana authors are in the mix, B.J. Bourg, who contributes “A Father’s Consolation,” about fighting in a karate tournament and Vanessa J. Kyles, whose “Love Isn’t Blind” is an anecdote about a visit to a store by a special little girl. There are scores of stories in this 306-page collection. Authors are from all across the country and even a few from outside the U.S.
This is the editor that I sent a complete press kit to including a copy of the book. That was in November. And I never heard anything from him. I know it's not much of a review, but at least it's a mention. He's known as a toughy to review anything. Anyway THANK YOU GREG LANGLEY FOR THE MENTION. (He didn't even mention our efforts to aid Disaster Relief)
New Orleans’ family is rallying around the city
By GREG LANGLEY
Books editor
Published: Jan 15, 2006
New Orleans is like a fighter who has been knocked out and is slowly awakening with an aching head. The city has definitely been beaten in a fight, but it’s not dead, just wounded. New Orleans’ family is rallying around the city, including its literary family.
A new paperback book exploits that very theme. My New Orleans: Ballads to the Big Easy by Her Sons, Daughters and Lovers (Touchstone Books, $13) is a collection of essays about the city written by three categories of writers: its sons, its daughters and its lovers. Sons include notables such as Wynton Marsalis and Christopher Rice. Daughters include Ellen Brennan, Poppy Z. Brite, Charmaine Neville. Lovers — not native New Orleanians but writers who have come to love the Crescent City — include Andre Codrescu, Rick Bragg, Julie Smith, Robert Olen Butler, Bret Lott, Roy Blount Jr., and many others. These short pieces include first person essays, opinion pieces, poetry and short fiction. All pay homage to New Orleans and seek to recreate the sights, sounds and smells washed away in Katrina’s floodwaters. The writing is of the highest quality and according to the cover, a portion of the proceeds from this book will benefit The Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society and PEN America Center’s Writer’s Fund.
Phillip Collier’s Missing New Orleans (The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, $39.95) was scheduled for publication before the storm hit. In fact workers at the Ogden Museum had to rescue galleys of the book from threatening flood waters. Only 4,000 copies of this nearly square ( approximately 9Ø by 9Ø ), softcover history and photography study were produced, but later editions include an added section which shows the fate of some of the historic buildings featured in the first proofs. The title was chosen before so much of the city was destroyed and has become a kind of mantra for those who love the city and are working to restore it. The vintage photographs include images of everything from the Dueling Oak to the Fairgrounds Racetrack to public buildings to street vendors and burlesque dancers. It’s a slice of New Orleans that had already partly vanished before the storm but now exists only in these photographs. There isn’t a trace of some of these buildings now.
Another collection of essays and Chicken Soup-type anecdotes, Stories of Strength (published by writer of Abolutewrite.com, $15.95 softcover), benefits “Disaster Relief Charities,” according to the cover. Few of these writers are likely to be recognized by the average reader but they produce short, first person-type fiction stories or personal essays or poems that are draw from the writers’ own experience and are designed to be inspirational or uplifting. Two Louisiana authors are in the mix, B.J. Bourg, who contributes “A Father’s Consolation,” about fighting in a karate tournament and Vanessa J. Kyles, whose “Love Isn’t Blind” is an anecdote about a visit to a store by a special little girl. There are scores of stories in this 306-page collection. Authors are from all across the country and even a few from outside the U.S.
This is the editor that I sent a complete press kit to including a copy of the book. That was in November. And I never heard anything from him. I know it's not much of a review, but at least it's a mention. He's known as a toughy to review anything. Anyway THANK YOU GREG LANGLEY FOR THE MENTION. (He didn't even mention our efforts to aid Disaster Relief)
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