I’m so excited that my Paris Gypsy Jazz bar travelogue is in Quail Bell Magazine. I just came back from a fantastic work/play adventure that began in the much re-blogged Cambridge Writers’ Workshop‘s infamous Yoga and Writing Retreat at the Château de Verderonne in Picardy, France, at which I was both a participant and a visiting professor. That then transitioned beautifully into about a week of solo research in Paris. The only way I could think to express this experience was sampling my journal, gushing over the most wonderful little Gypsy Jazz bar, L’atelier Charonne, and putting in a little Paris-photo gallery for this little piece. I know I can’t do it justice, but it was nice to take a shot at it. I was also lucky to see a bunch of friends in France– Gina La Piana, Antonia Alexandra Klimenko, the CWW femme fatales Diana Norma Szokolyai, Rita Banerjee, and Elissa Joi Lewis, and my darling gorgeous college friend Tessa Chaillou, her awesome husband Arthur, and their beautiful son Christian. 

I’ll put a few more bonus photos in this post, but all the good stuff is over at Quail Bell Magazine. Hopefully the novel will be better for it. I know I am.

Feast your eyes on the staircase from the Gustave Moreau Museum, various parks, street art, the lighting section of a French department store, the liberation anniversary parade, bitchy resting face with Tessa, a pug, potato chips and champagne with Gina a la Marilyn Monroe, and a hat I liked in a couch I loved in Chantilly.