Books by Joshua Clark

French Quarter Fiction: The Newest Stories of America's Oldest Bohemia

by Joshua Clark

"Branching across every genre, from mystery and romance to flash fiction and prose poetry, this anthology of works by preeminent writers on the heart of New Orleans features a previously unpublished story by Tennessee Williams, as well as stories by Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Robert Olen Butler, Andrei Codrescu, Barry Gifford, Poppy Z. Brite, Julie Smith, John Biguenet, Nancy Lemann, and Valerie Martin, among others. The characters in these works find themselves everywhere from Sarajevo on the eve of the First World War to Algiers Point just across the Mississippi River, but their stories are all anchored in the French Quarter. They wander from the 18th-century New World to a rooftop view of Bourbon Street on the cusp of the third millennium. Interspersed with the history of the city, these stories penetrate the standard clichTs and reflect the true sense of the French Quarterùits sensuality, mystery, the life behind its wallsùand lift the veils of privacy altogether. Whether surrealism or satire, these exceptional stories are beautiful, poignant, tragic, and comic."

Heart Like Water: Surviving Katrina and Life in Its Disaster Zone

by Joshua Clark

Try it. Right now. Picture the lights going off in the room you're sitting in. The computer, the air conditioning, phones, everything. Then the people, every last person in your building, on the street outside, the entire neighborhood, vanished. With them go all noises: chitchat, coughs, cars, and that wordless, almost impalpable hum of a city. And animals: no dogs, no birds, not even a cricket's legs rubbing together, not even a smell. Now bump it up to 95 degrees. Turn your radio on and listen to 80 percent of your city drowning. You're almost there. Only twenty-eight days to go.

Joshua Clark never left New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina, choosing instead to band together with fellow holdouts in the French Quarter, pooling resources and volunteering energy in an effort to save the city they loved. When Katrina hit, Clark, a key correspondent for National Public Radio during the storm, immediately began to record hundreds of hours of conversations with its victims, not only in the city but throughout the Gulf: the devastated poor and rich alike; rescue workers from around the country; reporters; local characters who could exist nowhere else but New Orleans; politicians; the woman Clark loved, in a relationship ravaged by the storm. Their voices resound throughout this memoir of a unique and little-known moment of anarchy and chaos, of heartbreaking kindness and incomprehensible anguish, of mercy and madness as only America could deliver it.

Paying homage to the emotional power of Joan Didion, the journalistic authority of Norman Mailer, and the gonzo irreverence of Tom Wolfe, Joshua Clark takes us through the experiences of loss and renewal, resilience and hope, in a city unlike any other. With lyrical sympathy, humility, and humor, Heart Like Water marks an astonishing and important national debut.

A portion of the author's royalties from this book will go to the Katrina Arts Relief and Emergency Support (KARES) fund, which supports New Orleans-area writers affected by the storm.Visit www.NewOrleansLiteraryInstitute.com to find out how to make a direct and positive impact on the region.

Louisiana in Words

by Joshua Clark

Created from submissions received from Louisiana citizens throughout the world, this anthology offers an authentic diary of Louisiana, a state fractured into regions more disparate than any other in America. The ultimate insider�s look, the book provides an unparalleled feel for hitherto hidden worlds inside the state. The selections�119 pieces from 109 contributors�run chronologically from dawn to dawn. Together these minutes provide a mosaic of the landscape, heritage, speech, and traditions of Louisiana, a place so often romanticized, demonized, adored, pitied, and patronized.

The Most Powerful Word: Why Mississippi Has Produced More Acclaimed Literature Than Any Other Region in History

by Joshua Clark, Judy Long, Clark & Long

Rife with humor, horror, and hope, this symphony of narratives captures Mississippi’s influence on world literature, showing how this complex and contradictory land has shaped the soul of storytelling like no other region its size in human history. Editors Joshua Clark and Judy Long orchestrated never-before-published interviews with many of the state’s most acclaimed authors — some living, many long gone — in a conversation revealing the secrets to becoming a great writer and digging into the roots of Mississippi’s singular literary DNA — how it formed and why it still matters. Their voices move from one theme to the next — from history to geography to storytelling to booze to race — touching on eras marked by the sorrow of segregation and the upheaval of integration. Woven throughout this tapestry are lesser-known-excerpts from the state’s literature, archival material, historical accounts, and revealing statistics. Mississippi’s literary heritage is more relevant today — with our continued racial reckoning — than ever. Indeed, The Most Powerful Word is a journey to understand not only how great writing is born, but how art, and so civilization, can evolve. What is it about this “little postage stamp of native soil” that has so defined the written word?

Lonely Planet by the Seat of My Pants

by Simon Winchester, Jan Morris, Pico Iyer, Tim Cahill, Joshua Clark, Sean Condon, Wickham Boyle, Danny Wallace

Lonely Planet: The world's leading travel guide publisher

Humorous tales of travel and misadventure.

Lonely Planet knows that some of life's funniest experiences happen on the road. Whether they take the form of unexpected detours, unintended adventures, unidentifiable dinners or unforgettable encounters, they can give birth to our most found travel lessons, and our most memorable - and hilarious - travel stories.

These 31 globegirdling tales that run the gamut from close-encounter safaris to loss-of-face follies, hair-raising rides to culture-leaping brides, eccentric expats to mind-boggling repasts, wrong roads taken to agreements mistaken. The collection brings together some of the world's most renowned travellers and storytellers with previously unpublished writers.

Includes stories by Wickam Boyle, Tim Cahill, Joshua Clark, Sean Condon, Chistopher R.Cox, David Downie, Holly Erikson, Bill Fink, Don George, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Jeff Grenwald, Pico Iyer, Amanda Jones, Kathie Kertesz, Doug Lansky, Alexander Ludwick, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Jan Morris, Brooke Neill, Rolf Potts, Laura Resau, Michelle Richmond, Alana Semuels, Deborah Steg, Judy Tierney, Edwin Tucker, Jeff Vize, Danny Wallace, Kelly Watton, Simon Wichester, Michelle Witton

About Lonely Planet: Started in 1973, Lonely Planet has become the world's leading travel guide publisher with guidebooks to every destination on the planet, as well as an award-winning website, a suite of mobile and digital travel products, and a dedicated traveller community. Lonely Planet's mission is to enable curious travellers to experience the world and to truly get to the heart of the places where they travel.

TripAdvisor Travellers' Choice Awards 2012 and 2013 winner in Favorite Travel Guide category

'Lonely Planet guides are, quite simply, like no other.' - New York Times

'Lonely Planet. It's on everyone's bookshelves, it's in every traveller's hands. It's on mobile phones. It's on the Internet. It's everywhere, and it's telling entire generations of people how to travel the world.' - Fairfax Media (Australia)

*#1 in the world market share - source: Nielsen Bookscan. Australia, UK and USA. March 2012-January 2013