Diana K. Schwam is a writer, strategic communications consultant, and a New Orleanian by choice from decades back. She can often be found in the city’s music, food, and cultural havens and hovels or exploring its lesser-known and unfolding corners in Miss Gulch— her green, two-wheeled pothole-dodger. Diana has infinite love for New Orleans—its folks and its ghosts; its eccentric elegance and eternal mysteries; and its tellers of tales and truths: They are as warm and essential to her as its spring air. She’s not much of a dancer but claps on the twos and fours. Usually.

Lavinia Spalding is series editor of The Best Women’s Travel Writing, author of Writing Away, and co-author of With a Measure of Grace and This Immeasurable Place. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Tin House, Longreads, and many other publications, and she co-hosts the podcast There She Goes. Since moving to New Orleans in 2016, Lavinia has been making her way through the city’s extraordinary array of sights, sounds, scents, and tastes. But it’s the feeling of New Orleans she loves most—a warmth and spirit unlike anything she’s experienced in all her wanderings. She’s here to stay.