Ellen Morris Prewitt Wrote a Wild Mississippi Ride Set in New Orleans

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit rooted.substack.comEllen Morris Prewitt—along with Etoile, the protagonist of When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women—counts herself in the long lineage of Mississippians who find creative energy and freedom in New Orleans. During her twenty years in Jackson, Ellen would often escape to New Orleans for the weekend. “It took me moving away from Jackson to see how much Jackson was influenced by New Orleans,” Ellen shared near the end of our book club conversation. “You know, you get shrimp remoulade there. You order a po’ boy and it is on the right kind of bread. Etoile talks about that whole part of the United States collapsing into New Orleans. And I think there’s that double layer of folks who are bringing Mississippi over to New Orleans with them.”When We Were Murderous Time-Traveling Women glides between Mississippi and New Orleans with delightful ease, and that osmosis felt equally present in our Bottom Reader Book Club conversation with Ellen Morris Prewitt. We covered a lot of ground—from Ellen’s publishing journey, to her writing process, to her own Mississippi grannies that serve as the inspiration for Etoile’s time-traveling grannies in the book. This book—and this conversation—is going to make you want to start planning your next visit to the Big Easy.You can listen to these book club recordings in the Substack app, in your web browser, or on Spotify . Subscribe to Rooted on Spotify to get notifications when new episodes are released. Recorded book club conversations are only available to paid subscribers, but the live book club sessions will continue to be free and open to all readers.Read ahead! We’ve got some great book club discussions on the horizon.June 30 - The Seven Daughters of Dupree by Nikesha Elise Williams with guest host Exodus BrownlowJuly 15 - The Irish Goodbye by Beth Ann Fennelly with guest host Catherine Simone GrayAugust 25 - America, U.S.A. by Eddie Glaude with guest host Talamieka Brice