Daughter of a butcher and a restaurant maven, granddaughter of a one-armed Cajun barbecue chef and a German gravedigger, I hail originally from the now famous Ninth Ward of New Orleans, just downriver from the French Quarter and the Faubourg Tremé. Growing up among the graveyards of my French, German and African-American neighbors, I played hide-and-seek in the cities of the dead, learned to decipher the voodoo markings adorning the above-ground ovens and honed my skills in palm reading, bar-hopping and fire baton twirling. My most recent adventures include scriptwriting "LULU WHITE: Queen of Storyville,” a musical cabaret that tells the story of one of New Orleans’ most fascinating madams and her opulent Mahogany Hall And "Josephine Baker: From Creole Goddess to Siren of the Resistance" for the National WW2 Museum's Stage Door canteen in New Orleans.
When not traveling, teaching, researching, and scribbling, I continue to wander the neighborhoods of New Orleans with the same curiosity that I brought to my childhood games of graveyard hide-and-seek. Who knows what I may unearth next?