Transient: Stories & Essays / Spillways New Orleans Fellowships
In a collection that intermingles fiction and truth, Midwest writer Molly Rideout explores the pitfalls and allure of searching for home in a place that never belonged to you.
“There were other transient camps than Michael’s in the Lower Nine. A person could spot them if they knew where to walk and what to look for: shirtless white boys with hemp necklaces microwaving something on the front porch, half a dozen plastic chairs circled like wagons around a fire pit. The cars were often a giveaway, a dense pack of varied plates and bumper stickers of obscure bands and another state’s NPR affiliate. I can’t remember who first told me about Michael’s place. Enough people had mentioned it during my trips down to New Orleans that I’d figured it must be the worst kept secret in the city.”
In early 2016, Molly was awarded a Spillways artist-in-residence fellowship with New Orleans-based arts organization Antenna. Over the next three years, with funding from the fellowship, she researched and reflected on the post-Katrina influx of largely white artists to New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, a neighborhood previously home to one of the largest percentages of African American homeownership in the country. The resulting collection of stories and essays draws from Molly’s own reflections of self, privilege, and home. Transient: Stories & Essays was printed in late 2019 by Antenna::Paper Machine. Learn more about Antenna's Spillways.
