The City Of Life And Death. New Orleans With Laura And Dan Martone Books And Travel

New Orleans is one of those cities that has a special place in the imagination of a traveler, even if you haven’t been there. It’s famous for loving life — for Mardi Gras parades, a vibrant music scene, drinking and eating and gorgeous architecture in the French Quarter — but it’s also known as the City of the Dead, with cemeteries, Voodoo, ghost stories, vampires, and of course, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

In today’s episode, native New Orleanian Laura Martone and her husband, Dan, talk about the history of the French Quarter and some of the haunted buildings there, the best cemeteries to visit, vampires, voodoo and Creole cuisine.

Laura and Daniel Martone write fiction in multiple genres including space opera, post-apocalyptic and urban fantasy. They lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans for many years and produced several audio walking guides. Laura has also written a guidebook to the city and they now live in their RV, Serenity, and travel between New Orleans and Michigan, USA.



* The various pronunciations of New Orleans

* Why the French Quarter has mostly Spanish influenced architecture

* Interesting cemeteries in the city

* Why vampires are associated with New Orleans

* How and why Catholicism and voodoo are so entwined

* The importance of music and its influence on the culture in New Orleans

* The different parades at Mardi Gras

* Seafood boils as social occasions

* The beautiful natural ecosystems that surround the city



You can find Dan and Laura Martone at TheMartones.com



Transcript of the interview

Joanna: Laura and Daniel Martone write fiction in multiple genres including space opera, post-apocalyptic and urban fantasy. They lived in the French Quarter of New Orleans for many years and produced several audio walking guides. Laura has also written a guidebook to the city and they now live in their RV, Serenity, and travel between New Orleans and Michigan.

Welcome, Laura and Dan.

Daniel: Hey Jo.

Laura: Hey, it’s so good to be here.

Joanna: It’s great to have you on the show. Before we get into the questions, I have to ask about the pronunciation of New Orleans because I think I got it from the song, House of the Rising Sun. But when I was there with you guys people pronounce it differently.

So let’s start with pronunciation.

Laura: Okay. The funny thing is Dan always makes fun of me that I don’t have a New Orleans accent, and I don’t, but my whole family does. But I definitely have been there long enough to know New Orleans is how I think most people pronounce it. That’s how I say it.

But people do say New Orleans. The thing that I think a lot of natives hate is n’awlins because n’awlins is like this sort of a hybrid. It’s definitely more of a manufactured thing. You know, some people say it jokingly, but I think New Orleans is pretty standard.

Joanna: Fantastic.

Start by telling us a bit more about your links to the city and how you both came to live and work there.

Laura: I was born and raised there. So it’s my hometown and it’s my favorite American city. It always has been.

We’ve both traveled a lot throughout the US and other countries. So, we’ve had a lot to compare it to and there’s no place like New Orleans. I left for college when I was 17 and ended up at Northwestern University in the Chicago area.

Dan’s a little older than me, but we met in a job and we stayed in Chicago for a little bit and then hit the road the first time in another RV and ended up settling in Los Angeles because we both interested in being in the film indus...