Finally was able to hook up with Ashley Nelson down in New Orleans today and it was a wonderful conversation. I was so impressed by several aspects of her book, but mostly by her willingness to be honest about herself, her family and her friends. She admitted that it wasn't easy, and for awhile she thought she would just fulfil the project by writing about the neighborhood, but it ended not being possible without also writing about everything else. She had to be totally honest in order to be even a little bit honest. Interesting isn't it? A high school kid figured out the whole honestly thing all on her own while the publishing industry and the nation are still grappling with the idea of truth. Too bad we all can't be as smart as a kid from the 6th Ward (or have the same moral standards).

I'm hoping that I can do her and her book justice with my article. The thing is, I don't want to oversell the Neighborhood Story Project books - I don't want to make them sound like a bunch of sanctimonious bullshit that we need to buy to support the poor children and so we can feel good about ourselves. But I really honestly see a lot of value in these books as historical objects - as records of a city that has been grossly misunderstood over the years. (And the two I have read so far are very well written as well.) One way or another, New Orleans is going to be rebuilt, I just want folks to read these books so they can see what worked and what didn't in the sections of the city that have been ignored for decades. The police were not good to the 6th Ward, and neither was the city. The people who lived there have some ideas about what would be good, and in Ashley's book a lot of them are finally given a voice. I'm not saying they are perfect people, but they do deserve to be heard. And from what I've seen on the news, I can't imagine that their ideas would be so bad compared to what everyone has been doing down there for so long.

Ashley Nelson and The Combination - The Neighborhood Story Project book #1 - will be up over at the Voices of New Orleans next month. I'll keep you posted.

And in other news, still reading Lulu Dark, still reading War in a Time of Peace, also reading Rogue River Journal -very interesting record of a writer's six month solitary residence in an Oregon cabin (where he kept a daily journal and thus we know what really happened!) and also reading many many good comics. Good reading, good talking and good writing - if we weren't looking at a massive cold front, I'd say this was one hell of a good week!