Description
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.”
Molly Rideout is a fiction and nonfiction writer who focuses largely on themes of place, deep history, and the rural Midwest. She often produces her work as public art or in handmade artist books.
She is the 2021 Writer-in-Residence at Edith Wharton’s “The Mount,” a recent grantee of MASS MoCA’s North Adams Project, a former Spillways Fellow at New Orleans’ Antenna, and a 2015 Farm/Art DTour commissioned artist. Her fiction-nonfiction chapbook Transient was published by Antenna::Paper Machine in autumn 2019. Her 2014-2015 project, “”Public Writing, Public Libraries”” includes new writing installed in 13 Iowa libraries and was highlighted by the American Library Association and Poets & Writers. Other publications include River Teeth, Fourth Genre, Mississippi Review, Tampa Review Front Porch Journal, The Wapsipinicon Almanac, and Bluestem”
