Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) prowled the streets of New Orleans from 1877 to 1888 before moving on to a new life and global fame as a chronicler of Japan. Hearn's influence on our perceptions of New Orleans, however, has unjustly remained unknown. In ten years of serving as a correspondent and selling his writing in such periodicals as the New Orleans Daily Item, Times-Democrat, Harper's Weekly, and Scribner's Magazine he crystallized the way Americans view New Orleans and its south Louisiana environs. Hearn was prolific, producing colorful and vivid sketches, vignettes, news articles, essays, translations of French and Spanish literature, book reviews, short stories, and woodblock prints. He haunted the French Quarter to cover such events as the death of Marie Laveau. His descriptions of the seamy side of New Orleans, tainted with voodoo, debauchery, and mystery made a lasting impression on the nation. Denizens of the Crescent City and devotees who flock there for escapades and pleasures will recognize these original tales of corruption, of decay and benign frivolity, and of endless partying. With his writing, Hearn virtually invented the national image of New Orleans as a kind of alternative reality to the United States as a whole. S. Frederick Starr, a leading authority on New Orleans and Louisiana culture, edits the volume, adding an introduction that places Hearn in a social, historical, and literary context. Hearn was sensitive to the unique cultural milieu of New Orleans and Louisiana. During the decade that he spent in New Orleans, Hearn collected songs for the well-known New York music critic Henry Edward Krehbiel and extensively studied Creole French, making valuable and lasting contributions to ethnomusicology and linguistics. Hearn's writings on Japan are famous and have long been available. But Inventing New Orleans: Writings of Lafcadio Hearn brings together a selection of Hearn's nonfiction on New Orleans and Louisiana, creating a previously unavailable sampling. In these pieces Hearn, an Anglo-Greek immigrant who came to America by way of Ireland, is alternately playful, lyrical, and morbid. This gathering also features ten newly discovered sketches. Using his broad stylistic palette, Hearn conjures up a lost New Orleans which later writers such as William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams used to evoke the city as both reality and symbol.

He Threw the Elephant in the Bayou will bring warmth to your heart and a smile to your face. Jody Seymour's stories, drawn from his memory bank of childhood days growing up in the country between Biloxi and Ocean Springs, Mississippi, and a few from later years, will draw you in and remind you of earlier times in your own life as well. Many of the stories call to mind the reality that we all make and break covenants. You will also find a new collection of Jody's poems that focus on the journey of faith. Some relate to seasons of the church year and others to specific Bible stories. All will give you insight and a new way of seeing these old themes.

A veteran music journalist explores rock-n-roll’s bayou roots in “a jolting 18-track joy ride [that] unlocks secrets and back-stories worth savoring” (The Wall Street Journal). The bayou of the American south—stretching from Houston, Texas, to Mobile, Alabama—is a world all its own, with a rich cultural heritage that has had an outsized influence on musicians across the globe. In this unique study of marsh music, Dave Thompson goes beyond the storied stomping grounds of New Orleans to discover secret legends and vivid mythology in the surrounding wilderness. In Bayou Underground, the people who have called the bayou home—such as Bob Dylan, Jerry Reed, Nick Cave, Bo Didley, a one-armed Cajun backwoodsman, and gator hunter named Amos Moses—are unearthed through their own words, their lives and music, and interviews with residents from the region. Included interviews with legendary musicians like Jerry Reed and Bo Didley, Bayou Underground is part travelogue, part social history, and part lament for a way of life that has now all but disappeared.

From the author of the popular Million Dollar Mysteries and Smart Chick Mysteries comes a new stand-alone novel full of hidden staircases, buried secrets, and the promise of hope found in knowing God. Miranda Miller wasn't looking for the news the day the letter came. But, trying to survive in troubled circumstances, she welcomes the chance to change her location for a period of time. The letter informs her that her grandparents' estate is finally about to become hers. She immediately heads down to Louisiana and the old house by the bayou. There Miranda finds secrets that lead to life-changing revelations. This suspenseful story reminiscent of old Gothic tales has a complex mystery and a vivid sense of the Deep South. It shows how God can take the darkest circumstances and use them to light a bright path leading to the future.

A collection of verse inspired by the author's home... the bayou country of Louisiana. Words within touch upon the culture, the natural beauty, and the struggles of its people.