Karolyn Denson Landrieux
Bio
Karolyn lives in Paris and Pittsburgh. She loves travel and has travelled most of the world, she enjoys time at home with family. Whether it's cooking, painting, designing or writing, creativity is her passion. @karolynd88 @maxineandbeanie
Stories (39/0)
The Barn Owl
Aja sat crossed legged on the door room floor. Her roommate Christina was leaning out of the opened window smoking her nightly clandestine cigarette, but everyone called her Nina. Even though there was a place for the juniors and seniors to smoke on campus, Nina still liked smoking out of their door room window. It made her feel a bit rebellious. Besides, the lounge closed at ten o’clock and it was already eleven . Traipsing to the lounge wasn’t fun in the cold weather either. Nina was from Curaçao so these forty degree temperatures felt outright frigid. Aja was listening to her mix tape of Hall and Oates, singing along off key and very much out of pitch. She was working on her essay about Andy Warhol for her Art history class. She was going to take the advanced placement test next semester to get college credits. Art history was one of her favorite classes. It was due Friday, but since it was already Wednesday night, the pressure to finish was on.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux2 years ago in Fiction
Interviews With My Friends
Interviews With My Friends ~ Throughout my travels and over the span of my lifetime I have had the pleasure to meet and get to know some of the most diverse and interesting people on the planet. Some are characters, some philanthropist, some creators, doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs and even some royals! Through this series you will get to meet just a few of my favorites. I hope you will enjoy~ Karolyn Denson Landrieux
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Interview
Pittsburgh2Paris
The abridged story of the journey of a girl from a small mill town to the big city. I am originally from North Braddock, Pennsylvania. An old mill town that has seen much better days. We lived with my grandmother, 2 uncles and an aunt in a 4 bedroom house on the hill. There were 7 of us there. My childhood was happy. Our family was a good family and there was always a lot of love and laughter. Still, it was a middle class life in Pittsburgh. We ate the basic meat and potatoes at dinner time. No one in our family drank alcohol except maybe a little around the holidays. The little bit of travel that we did do was by automobile and therefore quite limited. I always had my nose in some book, so of course I dreamed about all the exotic places that I would go, the different foods to try, and new people to meet that I was often reading about. I was sometimes accused of daydreaming. In hindsight I was a thinker. A planner. I am still both of those things. Children should not be shamed for being in their own world. It’s a blessing not a curse.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Wander
Lani and Natasha
The sledgehammer broke through the final panel of drywall sending bits of plaster and concrete flying. Lani removed her safety goggles to take a break before finishing for the evening. She gingerly picked her way across the hardwood floor trying to avoid debris. Picking up her silver water canister she took a deep drink of the still chilled water. Demolition was a tough process but she was used to it. Renovations were a part of her interior design business in New York. This, however, was a daunting project. Revamping a two hundred and twenty year old apartment was by far her biggest challenge to date. She knew that she was fortunate to have inherited this astonishing place from her grandmother. The location of the apartment in the Marais was perfect. She and her grandmother had always shared a special bond and much of the same taste. The apartment had been redone in nineteen ninety eight. It was overdue for an update and renovations. Lani felt obligated to preserve her grandmother's legacy.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Fiction
Racism 101
I have to take French civics classes to be able to have dual passports. It’s a process that I delayed far longer than I should have done. I glanced around the classroom as it began filling up with mostly sleepy faces. We were such a mashup of peoples from literally all over the globe. It was pleasing to me. I love that sort of thing. I felt quite comfortable.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Humans
Summer
I was 4 and a half years old when my brother was born. I was not at all happy about it. He was a chubby little thing with a perfectly rounded head and rosy cheeks that I would kissbite whenever mom wasn’t looking. He would cry of course and mom would say that she was going to put him outside in the trash can for the fairies to take him away. I actually liked the idea of that. I would ask her if they would feed him? I wasn’t evil after all.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Feast
The Hat Lady
When I was a little girl visiting our grandparents on weekends was something that I looked forward to. Mom’s mom always made wonderful edible treats, perpetually ready for whomever might drop by. She taught me how to cook. My dad’s mom had a huge breakfront in her living room filled with the most amazing hats of all shapes, sizes and colors. She taught me how to sew.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Families
1965
A lot happened in 1965. 56 years ago... The United States escalated its involvement in the Vietnam War that year. Bloody Sunday and the March on Selma happened. In New York, Malcom X was assassinated and The Worlds Fair was held. Tom & Jerry, Jefferson Airplane and A Charlie Brown Christmas made their debuts. The Gateway Arch was completed in St. Louis, the Pillsbury Doughboy was created and Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. 1965 was an extremely significant year. For my 4 year old self if held a different kind of significance; although there is no way that I could have know that at the time.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Humans
The Reason I Like Chocolate
I never planned on becoming a writer. Like most things in my life, it found me. When I was a sophomore in high school I went away to an all girls boarding school in Middleburg Virginia, Foxcroft. I was given a full ride scholarship. I came from a lower middle class existence from a filthy little steel town just outside of Pittsburgh. One could create and entire universe from what I didn’t know when I left Pittsburgh. Foxcroft opened so many doors to me. I learned who I was, what I was, where I came from. Foxcroft taught me of what titanium fabric that it is I am made.
By Karolyn Denson Landrieux3 years ago in Journal
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