New Orleans Landscape

I spend the last 3 days in New Orleans, getting my feet on the exact ground where Henry and Zavion, the two main characters in my middle grade novel, Another Kind of Hurricane, place their feet. Both of them walk very specific streets, and I was able to navigate the same ones, replicating their journeys.

Before this week, I had certainly imagined those journeys.  I researched them like crazy, pouring over maps multiple times, and talking with folks in New Orleans who could confirm that, yes, it was possible to turn this corner and walk down that street. I felt like I had done due diligence to the process. I knew, as best I could, where Henry and Zavion trekked as they went on their adventures.

But it another thing, all together, to actually walk in their footsteps.

Boy oh boy, does it matter…getting your body into the landscape you are trying to describe. It's not always possible, but when you can do it, it is amazing.  And not surprisingly, the details that come from experiencing something first hand are gifts. 

For instance, the wind. 

The approximate location of the Salvation Army

The grocery store

I walked from where I have placed the Salvation Army in my story, to where I have placed a small grocery store. 

These streets are right near the Mississippi River. The wind comes off of the river and, depending on whether you are walking perpendicular to it, or parallel, it whips harsh and sharp…or not.  And even when you walk a few blocks in from the river, you can feel it there. The expanse of it.  The abruptness of the land ending and this enormous body of water beginning.  The cramped feeling of narrow streets.

There are details, too, that are much harder to articulate.  A feeling on a street, or the sense of history that lies thick in walls and sidewalks.  The energy of a place.  The ways a landscape holds stories.  Layers and layers of stories.

Then, of course, the idea is to translate these details to the page. To add our story to those others. We do our best, right?

With gratitude,

Tam

An Interview with Whitney Stewart

We’re thrilled to have Whitney Stewart with us today talking about her new picture book, A Catfish Tale, which Kirkus calls a saucy, fresh Cajun twist on the traditional tale of the fisherman and his wife, set in the Louisiana bayou.

KTE: Welcome Whitney!

WS: Hi all. Thanks for having me on your blog.

KTE: The rich and vivid landscape of the Louisiana bayou is such a fun and evocative setting for your imaginative retelling of this folk tale. And you seem to know it very well. Can you tell us a little bit about why you chose to tell your story here?

WS: I’ve lived in New Orleans for twenty-four years. Only in this spunky city do you see street musicians wrangling with horse-drawn carriages, Mardi Gras queens tossing out doubloons, and giant catfish swishing dangerously close to the riverbank. I walk along the Mississippi River almost every day, and it sings to me through its morning gray light. I've set three books here, and my newest picture book, A Catfish Tale, truly captures the color and melody of New Orleans.

KTE: Lucky you! A daily walk along the Mississippi sounds wonderful! Could you describe some of the sights and sounds you encounter on your walk for us?

WS:  Picture this: pale light falling across a rose-colored stucco façade; intricate iron railings hiding Creole ghosts; riverboats sounding their off-pitch calliope against the tapping of thumbtack shoes. And don't forget Mr. Okra's raspy tenor tempting you with fresh watermelon before the cicadas drown out his call.

KTE: Wow. You really bring the scene to life—I can see and hear it almost as if I were there myself. With such a rich landscape to draw from, can you tell us how you wove some of the details into your story?

WS: Alligators, catfish, crawfish, and cicadas come alive as characters in A Catfish Tale and befriend our protagonist Jacques. But Jacques' wife wants more than gumbo and cypress knees, so she ventures out of the swamp and into the glam and bang of Mardi Gras. Readers see it all—from alligator snout to raining Mardi Gras beads.

KTE: I love your writing and how you bring the story vividly to life with rich, sensual details, your light touch with dialect and the sprinkling of Cajun French. I also love the beautifully colorful illustrations; they add so much to the magical feeling your story invokes.

WS: Kind of you to say! I owe a big thanks to my French illustrator Gerald Guerlais. He paid attention to the details of our landscape.

KTE: It seems that the culture and landscape of Louisiana is particularly and personally important to you?

WS: Yes, it is. I'm from Boston—I grew up swimming in Walden Pond and hiking in Vermont and New Hampshire. I love my childhood landscape, but it isn't peppered with Tabasco or draped with Spanish moss. There's something about New Orleans that sinks into the heart of a writer and sweats out through the skin onto the page.

You know what I mean?

KTE: Yes, after talking to you, I think I do. Thank you so much Whitney for being with us today and for sharing insights into some of the inspiration and setting of A Catfish Tale!

WS: Oh, and one more thing—try out my husband’s gumbo recipe in the back of the book. I’m vegetarian, so I can’t eat it. But all our friends love it. And you might too.

KTE: Yum!

Whitney Stewart once caught a magic catfish and threw it back. He granted her so many wishes that she traveled around the world more than once. Now she lives in New Orleans, home of catfish, crawdads, and crabs. And don't forget Mardi Gras. She's wanted to tell the Brothers Grimm story of “The Fisherman and His Wife” ever since, at age twelve, she played the wife is a staged musical version. Find out more about Whitney on her website: http://www.whitneystewart.com/ or follow her on Twitter @whitneystewart2

Gerald Guerlais was born in France and grew up in many different cities throughout the land of cheese. He adapted to the new schools in each place by developing drawing skills to make new friends. In addition to illustration, he has worked in video games and animation. He lives in Paris. You can see more of his art on his website: http://www.geraldguerlais.com/

Whitney Stewart

Children's Book Author

www.whitneystewart.com

SELECTED BOOKS:

A Catfish Tale (Albert Whitman, Spring 2014)

Big Sky Mind: Mindfulness for Kids (Windy Hollow Books, Spring 2014)

Marshall, The Sea Dog (Soundprints)

Who Was Walt Disney? (Penguin)

Dancing For Joy

With the old year giving way to the new, I have been thinking of what I want to do this year (like I do at the beginning of every year) Be kinder. Be more attentive and present. Have more fun. Take more risks. (Especially when it comes to my writing.) Make more things with my hands. Travel. Travel more. The last one makes the list every year.

Sewn art by Chris Roberts Antieau

Why travel? I believe travel changes you for the better. It expands you. It adds depth and breadth to your life. It costs money but makes you richer. Miriam Beard, writer, American historian, archivist and lifelong advocate of social justice through education and activism in the woman’s rights movement said it perfectly:

“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.”

Amen.

I recently spent a week in New Orleans—a trip I took with my wonderful husband David to celebrate our one-day-apart birthdays. It was a fabulous trip with treats for all of the senses. We wandered all over the place, rented bikes and rode all over even more of the place through the tree lined streets, listened to lots and lots of music each day, which is everywhere you go—

On the streets and in the clubs—jazz and funk and rock and Cajun Zydeco and little Indie bands playing on the street corner for spare change. 

We savored new flavors and textures at restaurants and cafes—some new and fresh and innovative, some old and steeped in NOLA tradition. (I ate many bowls of delicious steaming gumbo.) Over the week, I could feel the experiences becoming part of me—part of who I am, part of the way I see the world. I decided I would pick the five things that I think impacted me the most—the things that I think are now permanently embedded in my soul.

     1) The Singing Oak in City Park. This huge one hundred year old oak is strung with wind chimes from small to large. (one is 14 feet long!) It is a musical art installation by Jim Hart, all tuned to the pentatonic scale, so the wind through the chimes creates a beautiful and soulful harmony. Every city should have one of these.  I swear the world would be a more peaceful, happier place if everyone could go sit under such a tree everyday. Here’s a link to a youtube video that will let you listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mcwiy5TKQ6M

 2) Walking in a second line for Nelson Mandela. For those of you who didn’t watch Treme, a second line is a tradition in brass band parades in New Orleans. The first line is made up of the club musicians who play the instruments and lead the parade and the second line is the people who follow. It is also referred to as a happy jazz funeral without the body.

     3) Chris Roberts Antieau. Wandering through the French Quarter, we noticed a window with a stuffed owl and an ornately decorated deer head set in a snowy forest. We crossed the street and entered the Antieau Gallery and fell under the spell of the whimsical, gorgeous, strange and evocative hand-sewn images created by artist Chris Roberts Antieau. 

Sewn Art by Chris Roberts Antieau

     The website is being redone, but you can see more images at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Antieau-Gallery/113383182050369

     4) Lunch at Dooky Chase’s. Dooky Chase in the Treme was the informal headquarters in the 1960’s for the civil rights movement. (President Obama flew in to eat here after his first inauguration.) Leah Chase’s gumbo is widely considered the best. (It was REALLY good!)

     5) Dancing to Bruce Daigrepont’s Cajun band at Tipitina’s. Okay, so we don’t dance. Usually. But who can resist dancing the two-step when everyone else in the room is dancing and the joyful music makes you have to move? It was such fun! (We’ll be dancing more in the future…) Bruce made red beans and rice for everyone at Tipitina’s that night. (Also, in my next life, I am going to play the accordion.) Here’s a sweet little video about Bruce, Cajun music and post Katrina New Orleans: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyfHeDGxh8s

"But how could you choose just five?" my husband asks. It’s hard. So here’s five more things that we both loved: Riding bikes through Faubourg Marigny and the Bywater, discovering Washboard Chaz, washboard player extraordinaire, Zydeco night at Rock and Bowl, eating oysters at Casamento’s, and birthday dinner at Bayona.

Oh, and taking the St. Charles streetcar through the Garden District. And sipping a sazerac at The Sazarac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel. And watching the second to the last Treme on a big screen in the backroom of Buffa’s with a roomful of locals. Oh, I could go on and on…

What travel experiences have changed you?

Take Good Care,

Sharry