Seminar Speaker

Saturday, July 25

3:55–4:30 p.m. Plenary Session, Auditorium

“The Art of the Narrative Essay” Julia Reed, a contributing editor at Vogue and Newsweek and author of Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialties.

Julia Reed is a contributing editor at Vogue and Newsweek, where she writes the magazine's Food and Drink column. Her latest book, Ham Biscuits, Hostess Gowns, and Other Southern Specialities, takes the reader on a lively and very personal tour of the culinary—and social—South. She is author of Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena and The House on First Street, My New Orleans Story. Her nonfiction book, The House on First Street, was inspired when Reed went to New Orleans in 1991 to cover the reelection of former governor Edwin Edwards. She became, as her publisher noted, “Seduced by the city's sauntering pace, its rich flavors and exotic atmosphere,” and  “was never entirely able to leave again. After almost fifteen years of living like a vagabond on her reporter's schedule, she got married and bought a house in the historic Garden District. Four weeks after she moved in, Hurricane Katrina struck. With her house as the center of her own personal storm as well as the ever-evolving stage set for her new life as an upstanding citizen, Reed traces the fates of all who enter to wine, dine (at her table for twenty-four), tear down walls, install fixtures, throw fits and generally leave their mark on the house on First Street.”