New Orleans today: a restored house next to one that remains vacant. Photo by Carolyn Kellogg.
Pia Z. Ehrhardt is the author of the book Famous Fathers and Other Stories; she has won many awards
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Erhardt sat down with Jacket Copy to talk about her hometown and her work:
Jacket Copy: How long have you lived in New Orleans and what do you like about the city?
Pia Z. Ehrhardt:
I've lived in New Orleans since 1980, after leaving Mississippi to elope with my first husband. The marriage only lasted five shaky years, but I stayed put. I feel like I've been in a 30-year, up-and-down love affair with a city.
A lane of Live Oaks
Mbt italia, shortly after Hurricane Katrina hit on Aug. 29, 2005. Photo by Pia Z. Erhardt.
JC: How did the transformations caused by Hurricane Katrina in affect your relationship to and perception of New Orleans?
PZE: When I first returned to New Orleans in October (for the day, because my son and I were living in Houston for the fall semester)
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ferragamo Flats, what to do, how to grieve. It was like watching someone you love suffer and the prognosis is iffy at best. But this a fiercely resilient place. Everything was the color of ash, but within a few months, green started poking through, grass, new leaves, and bushes that had stayed under polluted water for three weeks flowered. People dragged their belongings out to the street, and they were moving ahead, trying to reclaim their homes and businesses and lives. So you keep going on bits of hope and progress. This is a patient and proud and steadfast town, as are its people, and, come to find out, so am I.
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