Pauline Baird Jones

  • It’s a PAR-TAY #NewOrleans Style

    You can’t write about New Orleans without writing about Mardi Gras. It is the party that runs through it. If you have been hanging around here much, then you know I’m a hermit, so the hermit and The World’s Largest Party have a few compatibility issues. But I was younger back then, so I did…

  • Why I Wrote DEAD SPACES

    We write books for lots of reasons. Usually, there isn’t one “this is why I wrote this book.” Which is why I have, and like, this feature. I’m curious why authors write the books they write. And believe it or not, I’m curious why I wrote a particular book. (You’d think I’d know, wouldn’t you?)…

  • I was Land-Locked But Now I Sea #NewOrleans

    If you didn’t grow up land-locked, I’m not sure if I have the words to describe what it was like to see  a great big old river for the first time. Or the Gulf of Mexico. How different the air feels and smells around the water. Or the sound of water rolling onto a sandy…

  • New Orleans Obsessions (Besides Food)

    One of the comments my editor had about Dead Spaces, was that Hannah seemed “a little obsessed about parking.” I will admit that some of my New Orleans obsessions may have crept into the book. Please understand, I grew up in a small town in Northern Wyoming. The only time parking got a bit challenging…

  • New Orleans: I Fell For Her Stomach First

    Our first meal in New Orleans was at Taco Bell. The hubs is still mortified by this. It was late, we had a hungry eight-year-old, a month old baby, and I’d had a very long day. So we assuaged our hunger and went to bed. Within a few days, we were faced with the above.…

  • New Orleans They Wrote

    I’m talking New Orleans in the run up to the release of Dead Spaces next month (book 2 in my Big Uneasy series). On Monday I wrote a bit about my transition to New Orleans as a person, but New Orleans also had a huge impact on me as an author. I wish I could bottle the…

  • How I Came to Miss New Orleans

    While the math is a bit sobering, I can’t make it add up any differently. It was—gulp—thirty years—and almost exactly two months ago—that we began our journey toward knowing what it means to miss New Orleans. The hubs and I drove there from Texas with one daughter, a one-month-old baby and a six-week-old, new hip…

  • Don’t Try This At Home #TeaserTuesday

    This week I’m teasing with a snippet from Core Punch, the first installment in my Uneasy Future series that takes place in a future New Orleans (now called New Orleans New). Our intrepid NONPD detectives are on a rescue mission dirt side. Which, of course, goes horribly wrong. “In the murk of the storm, she felt again her…

  • My “No Formal Resolutions” Zone

    When I was a little girl, all the new year meant to me was that it would soon be time to go back to school. I didn’t like school that much. Resolutions? I don’t remember resolving to do anything except maybe play more. I also don’t remember when I was “introduced” to the notion of…

  • Back to the Big Easy – Why I Wrote RELATIVELY RISKY

    Eleven years ago—and after 18 years there—the hubs and I left the Big Easy, courtesy of a company transfer. The thing about New Orleans, it doesn’t let you completely leave. It lingers in your mind. And yeah, in your taste buds. You find yourself trying to find food as good and to inhale those rich,…