Creative Writing Field Seminars

They're Trying to Wash Us Away: New Orleans

What does it mean to write from the bottom-from that place where the river that drains most of the country finally empties itself into the Gulf of Mexico? How might the constant flooding and threats of hurricanes have shaped the voices and visions of those who call themselves writers, musicians and artists? Could native Louisianan's love of masking and deception, dancing, jazz and blues have environmental as well as cultural roots? Is there something about the fiction, nonfiction or poetry that comes from the New Orleans area that brands it as from that vibrant, tragic place?

This is a field seminar that will involve readings and field experience in Louisiana, specifically New Orleans and the Cajun prairies and swampland of the Atchafalaya. We will also look at the unique culture of Louisiana (Creole and Cajun food and music, jazz funerals, the Mardi Gras Indians, New Orleans Mardi Gras traditions and Cajun Mardi Gras traditions).

During the field seminar we will visit the French Quarter and the Historic Uptown area. We will stroll down the streets of the French Quarter, which were relatively undamaged by Hurricane Katrina, and take in its stunning and varied architecture, sights and sounds. We will visit the extensive Mardi Gras Museum, the French Market, St. Louis Cathedral, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and we'll walk along the levees and listen to jazz. We'll sample Cajun and Creole cuisine and consider how it was born of this environment.

We'll talk to writers and artists and musicians who call New Orleans home, some of whom will conduct writing workshops for you. We'll also visit the home of the Louisiana Endowment of the Humanities and have a special meeting with its director. At night we'll hear some of the best jazz in the country.

We will pay a visit to A Studio in the Woods, the only environmental artist and writer's retreat in New Orleans, dedicated to protecting a hardwood forest in Algiers, and will have a tour of this fragile landscape, and also a tour of urban Algiers, which used to be a slave holding camp, and has been home to many black jazz musicians.

We'll also visit areas of New Orleans, insofar as it is safe and the government allows, that were damaged or destroyed by Katrina, and talk to environmentalists about the particular situation of New Orleans and how the city should be rebuilt.

After New Orleans we'll travel to Cajun country: Lafayette and surrounding prairies and swamplands, where we will be taken by boat on a tour of the Atchafalaya Swamp by a Cajun crawfisherman and where we'll visit Cajun homes and museums, as well as participate in the Rendez Vous des Cajuns radio show in Eunice, Louisiana. We'll tour the prairies and bodies of water in the Cajun heartland, maybe even catch some crawfish ourselves and maybe visit one of the many spring festivals that take place in May.