New Orleans!

[susanstinson]

Yay! The full schedule and bios are up for the Saints and Sinners queer writers conference!

It's May 7,8. 9, I'm on a panel, giving a reading, and I've never been to New Orleans, so I'm excited. Lots of great folks will be there, including Jewelle Gomez, Michelle Tea, Mark Doty, Paul Lisicky and Kristie Helms, who just brought out a book with Firebrand, my publisher, so I'm looking forward to meeting her. I really love Mark Doty's work, and the last time I heard him speak -- he was the keynote at OutWrite, a writers conference that used to be based in Boston, and he spoke in such a gentle, direct, luminous, stirring way about writing and politics -- oh, it made me cry to listen him. I love it when folks get to the heart of things. I'm very sorry that I'm in a reading opposite the time when he's going to be publicly interviewed at the conference -- hate to miss that -- but I'm reading with Christopher Rice (and also Rob Stephenson, Jim Tushinski, Greg Wharton, and Katherine V. Forrest) -- can't complain about doing that in New Orleans...

I've got a free day Monday (had to stay one more day to get a cheap plane ticket.) Any tips on what I should do or see while I'm there?

Comments

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

Eat! If you can possibly find the funds to have an elegant meal, it's worth weeks and weeks of boxed mac and cheese to do so. If you can't, just eat in every low-end restaurant you pass in the Quarter.

If you're an aroma junkie, the spice store north of the Cafe du Mond on the main drag is one of the five or six best-smelling places I have ever been.

And just walking around the Quarter is great. I've been to NO twice and never done any formal sightseeing--never wanted to. Though I understand the drowning cemeteries are pretty marvelous.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Great food, spice store, walking -- got it! But drowning cemeteries? There are cemeteries just for people who have drowned? I do love cemeteries.

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

The 19th century cemeteries were built on marshland and have since sunk huge amounts; the caskets were moved up and put in monuments on pylons to keep them dry. As I said, I haven't been, but I understand one walks around in the swampland (or more likely on paved paths). It always sounds dramatic and interesting to me.

[susanstinson.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've heard of this -- definitely draws me.

[bearsir.livejournal.com]

One morning, early, walk down to Decatur Street to the Café Du Monde. Home of the famous NOLA doughnut, the beignet. These are not overrated. Walk in (it's an outdoor café) and straight to the back along the building, that'll be the take-out window. Ask for a small café au lait and one order (which is three beignets) - it costs three bucks even. Take lots of sugars, the coffee is very strong. Leave there, and you'll see a huge set of ceremonial sort of situpon stairs, with walkway stairs on either side, there's a statue of something at the top. Walk up to the statue, down the other side, cross the train tracks, and walk up another short flight of stairs to what's called the Moonwalk, a wide, paved path that runs along the Mississippi. When you get to the Moonwalk, you'll see an old set of stumpy wooden railroad tie steps that lead right down into the Mississippi. Sit on the steps, watch the river, feel the breeze on your face, eat your breakfast, and dream.