A couple of weeks ago I mused that my Nov. 4 presentation at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic might be the last time I was going to talk about Louisbourg. How foolish and forgetful was that. I had forgotten about La Rochelle and Rochefort. Late November in those two small cities on France’s Atlantic coast (at roughly the same latitude as Louisbourg) I have to speak about that intriguing, vanished place two more times. I have spent the better part of the past two days writing a paper to collect my thoughts. It takes longer to do it in French, but I have to say it’s fun. My title: “Qu’est-ce que c’est, ce Louisbourg?” Along with the paper, simultaneously, I’ve put together 43 images that go with the different parts of my talk.

Now that it’s finished I can get back to laying down more pages in the third Thomas Pichon novel.