For aspiring writers, New Orleans in the 1920s wasn’t just another city; it was a cultural crucible where artistic voices were forged amid a tolerant, bohemian atmosphere. For William Faulkner, his transformative stay in the French Quarter in 1925 proved pivotal, marking his transition from an aspiring poet to a fledgling novelist and profoundly shaping his literary trajectory.

When Faulkner arrived in January 1925, a few months after his 27th birthday, he was only passing through on his way to Europe. But he quickly fell under the city’s spell, finding in its French Quarter a poor man’s Paris where he could live cheaply and richly among artists.

He rented a modest apartment in Pirate’s Alley (then Orleans Alley), today a literary landmark. This lean living situation was part of the Quarter’s allure: Low rents attracted a diverse creative class that lived and worked cheek by jowl in its crumbling townhouses.

“The brooding and timeless quality of the city,” he observed, “is broken only by the sudden raucous cry of a newsboy or the ironic laughter of a drunk.” It was the city’s unapologetic pageantry and mercurial cast of characters, observed with a sharp outsider’s eye, that would teach him to inhabit perspectives far beyond his Mississippi roots.

According to Jay Watson, recently retired Distinguished Professor of English and Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies at the University of Mississippi, New Orleans offered the young writer something Oxford, Mississippi, could not.

Faulkner never forgot the kindness, later dedicating the book to Anderson. But as Watson notes, Anderson’s impact went even deeper: “Ironically, one of the most important things Sherwood Anderson ever did for Faulkner was to tell him to leave New Orleans — to go back to Mississippi, to the place he knew best, if he really wanted to maximize his talent.”

McClure, an editor at The Times-Picayune and the influential Double Dealer magazine, became one of Faulkner’s earliest champions, publishing his first poem and later his experimental prose sketches.

The Times-Picayune itself became Faulkner’s training ground. He sold numerous short stories and sketches to the paper, often earning $5 to $15 apiece — much-needed income for the young writer.

Paid by the inch, Faulkner learned to adapt his lush style into something immediate and concise. “Being paid by The Times-Picayune must have been empowering for Faulkner,” Watson said. “For the first time, he was making coin for his writing — not vanity press or favors from friends, but real income. It helped him believe in himself.”

Beyond journalism, New Orleans gave him experiences that became raw material for fiction. A disastrous yacht excursion on Lake Pontchartrain with Anderson and other artists — plagued by mosquitoes, engine trouble, and frayed tempers — would inspire his second novel, “Mosquitoes.” The Quarter also encouraged him to experiment with shape-shifting into character, vanishing into other voices and perspectives. As he later reflected, New Orleans was a place where “imagination takes precedence over fact.”

Faulkner’s time in New Orleans was brief, but it became a lifelong touchstone. Later in life, he remembered the city with affection, saying he “had more fun there than I ever had and ever will have again anywhere now.”

As he once wrote in his early sketches, “Here is the substance of a thousand dreams, their beauty broken, trampled, and cast aside. Yet it still clings, the romance of a past that will not pass.”

Joseph S. Makkos is a New Orleans — based archivist, writer and director of Intelligent Archives, a company dedicated to preserving and reimagining historic newspapers. 

I hope to be able to attend the Faulkner festival this year.

My book this week was “The Grand Paloma Resort” by Cleyvis Natera.  This didn’t hold my attention too well – lots of peaks and valleys with the storyline feeling a bit repetitive quite often.  I would recommend skipping it.  Here’s the online summary: