Author: Morris Ardoin

Cajun New Yorker. Writer, reader, painter, cooker, kvetcher.
Podcast

QVotS Interview With Steven Capsuto

My Queer Voices of the South podcast co-host John Marszalek and I interviewed author Steven Capsuto about his fascinating book, Alternate Channels, and that interview is now available for listening on the New Books Network. Alternate Channels explores the fight for lesbian and gay visibility on 20th-century American television, as gay activists faced off with powerful, often vicious “traditional values” crusaders, with TV executives caught in … Continue reading QVotS Interview With Steven Capsuto

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My Books

70,000+ Words & 15 Confessions

Today I surpassed 70,000 words on my new novel, Motel Confessionals (working title). I mentioned last time that 70,000 is the goal for novels and 100,000 words is the standard cutoff point (my memoir is about 98,000 words). I expect to complete this first draft in the next couple of weeks. It’s not just the word-count that get’s you there. “There” is that point when … Continue reading 70,000+ Words & 15 Confessions

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Podcast

Here Are All of the QVotS Podcast Episodes

In the fall of 2020 my University Press of Mississippi fellow authors Pip Gordon and John Marszalek, and I started “Queer Voices of the South,” a new podcast on the New Books Network to showcase the work of other Southern writers like ourselves – writers who’ve published books in the LGBTQ genre. Here’s a list of the books we’ve covered to date: 2021 Episodes April … Continue reading Here Are All of the QVotS Podcast Episodes

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Podcast

My Interview With Daniel Harrison on the New Books Network

Click to access my interview with Daniel Harrison on the paperback release of his new book LIVE AT JACKSON STATION. A great conversation about a fascinating book that will appeal to music historians, impresarios, fans of Southern literature, and anyone who likes a fast-paced tale about a notorious tragedy at a rambling blues club in small-town South Carolina. Continue reading My Interview With Daniel Harrison on the New Books Network

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My Books

Review of STONE MOTEL in ‘G&L Review’

Below is a NEW review from the GAY & LESBIAN REVIEW. The G&L Review is a big deal for us LGBTQ writers, so I’m quite thrilled. (One quibble: my sibs and I were paid for working in the motel – so we were not “free” labor as the writer says. ‘Cheap,’ yes, but not free.) Get Out (but not yet) By DANIEL BURR STONE MOTELMemoirs of … Continue reading Review of STONE MOTEL in ‘G&L Review’

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Cajun

‘Twas the night before New Year’s

Family customs, especially those based on folklore, are a lot like recipes – they change bit by bit over the years as they’re passed down. In my family Momma brought the New Year’s Eve custom of “Jabless” (pronounced “Jah-bless”) to us, as her mother, our mémère, had done for her children. Here’s how the Jabless custom goes: On New Year’s Eve, the children put out a … Continue reading ‘Twas the night before New Year’s

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Cajun, Food & Recipes

Great Depression Bouillie au Lait

In our house in Eunice, Louisiana, in the 1960s and ’70s, bouillie au lait (milk custard) was a comfort food. We pronounced it “B-yo-ly,” and sometimes ate it for breakfast or as an after-school snack. In Momma’s childhood home in Ville Platte during the Great Depression, bouillie au lait was survival food. It was affordable for poor families like theirs because it required only three … Continue reading Great Depression Bouillie au Lait

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Food & Recipes

The Casserole Renaissance

The 1970s ushered in the era of convenience foods – think “Hamburger Helper” and taco-making kits (“Just add your own ground beef!”). It was also the heyday of the casserole – a dish with a wide (and forgiving) interpretation involving the combination of protein, fat, and starch in a rectangular baking dish (funnily enough, called a “casserole.”) Usually held together with noodles of some sort, … Continue reading The Casserole Renaissance

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Quelque Chose

Autumnal Optimism?

This past Monday, Labor Day, I sat at my dining room table and laptopped my way through the jobs boards to find appropriate positions to bookmark for the week. Then I spent a few hours customizing my cover letters for those positions; filled in a couple of those same organizations’ very time-absorbent application forms (Uggh! They’re already getting my resume!); and reworked each of the … Continue reading Autumnal Optimism?

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My Books

What Readers Are Saying About ‘Stone Motel’

My book Stone Motel – Memoirs of a Cajun Boy has gotten some very nice comments from readers. These remarks were made on Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, Goodreads, Facebook, and here on Parenthetically Speaking. (Some have been edited to exclude personal details of the writers, and/or for length.) I’ve compiled them here for easier access. There are also several nice newspaper and magazine articles … Continue reading What Readers Are Saying About ‘Stone Motel’

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Food & Recipes

Ortense’s Gateau aux Figues

In 1992 when I moved to New York from Louisiana I took my love of the food of my home state right into my East Village kitchen – where regularly I made jambalaya, étouffée, gumbo, fricassée, courtbouillon, and all the rest, like I’d never left Cajun Country. The key ingredients (or reasonable substitutes) for those dishes are available pretty much anywhere. But there was one thing … Continue reading Ortense’s Gateau aux Figues

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