J. Michael Warner

J Michael Warner's

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Written by Lyle Saxon and edited by James Michael Warner Second-place winner of the 2019 IndieReader Discovery Award for Fiction! Lyle Chambers Saxon earned his writing chops while reporting for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. As a young man in the...

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By J Michael Warner
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Up From the Ashes: Rebuilding the Cabildo

June 18, 2023
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History

Fire is the mortal enemy of the city’s oldest neighborhood, but in the case of the 1988 Cabildo inferno, dedicated preservationists prevailed in the end. Originally published October 2019 in The French Quarter Journal. “I thought it was a joke...

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By J Michael Warner
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Book Review: Jesmyn Ward’s Sing, Unburied, Sing

June 14, 2023
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Book Reviews

Review originally published July 8, 2018. Jesmyn Ward’s 2017 book, Sing, Unburied, Sing (Scribner) is an engrossing novel of a Mississippi family struggling with issues of race, unemployment and threatened family breakup. It is a difficult book to put down....

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By J Michael Warner
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Best Red Beans and Rice in the World

June 14, 2023
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Food

Originally published by Cultured Oak Press, August 14, 2018. It’s not just for Monday anymore! New Orleans red beans and rice can be made anytime you have a day-long project from which you can take occasional breaks to stir the...

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Danseuse du Roi: The Life of Suzanne Vaillandé Douvillier

June 14, 2023
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History

Originally published in the French Quarter Journal, February 7, 2020. A mysterious dancer in the early 1800s mesmerized crowds and caused consternation by cross-dressing and challenging social norms. She led a life both romantic and tragic, the stuff of which...

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By J Michael Warner
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The Last Forgeron

June 14, 2023
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History

Originally published by Cultured Oak Press, June 17, 2018. Who created the wonderfully detailed iron balconies in New Orleans? In 1920, the last in a line of French Quarter forgerons put down his hammer. M. Charles Antoine Mangin, Jr., a...

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That Heathen Crowd at the Green Shutter

May 30, 2023
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History

Originally published in the French Quarter Journal, July 30, 2019. In the Roaring 20s, feisty Uptown socialite Martha Westfeldt opens a French Quarter bookstore that becomes Bohemia Central. From time to time, a shop opens in the French Quarter that...

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By J Michael Warner
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About Me

J. Michael Warner

Michael is editor of A Lyle Saxon Reader, available from Cultured Oak Press and bookshops. He lives in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi and writes for the French Quarter Journal.

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