HAIL AND FAREWELL

Just finished teaching my last creative writing class for this semester. The subject was the Art of the Profile. My eight students were smart, eager, and a joy to work with. The most gratifying moment for me was when one of them, a precocious freshman in a class of upperclassmen, volunteered that "what's cool about this class is that everyone's writing improved." That's true. Some were quite talented to begin with, but they all wound up well ahead of where they started from. I'll miss them all.

WIST INTERVIEW: SONG, JAZZ...AND JACQUES CHIRAC

Did a long interview with WIST host Errol Laborde last week. Subjects: the new edition of "Song For My Fathers," my memories of growing up in New Orleans and learning to play jazz, my musical and other pursuits since moving back here after 40 years, and some anecdotes about my years in Paris with TIME Magazine--including an amusing story about former French President Jacques Chirac's claim to have dined at Galatoire's with Cab Calloway in 1954, an improbable event in those Jim Crow days. (A backslapping hail-fellow-well-met, Chirac never let the strict truth get in the way of a good story.) Check it out.

Part One: http://www.webwiseforradio.com/site_files/244/File/elb_042210_1.mp3

Part Two: http://www.webwiseforradio.com/site_files/244/File/elb_042210_2.mp3

WWNO INTERVIEW ON "SONG FOR MY FATHERS"

Thanks to WWNO's Fred Kasten for a deft editing job of the long-winded interview I gave him a few days ago on the subject of my memoir Song For My Fathers, which comes out in paperback next week, updated with a substantial new epilogue. Fred turned a hour's worth of talk into a coherent 10-minute discussion of the book and its origins. If interested, you can hear his show on this NPR affiliate by following this link:

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wwno/local-wwno-896123.mp3