I am a Louisiana-born and based freelance writer and professional historian. I've written on food and travel and books for Oxford American, Garden & Gun, Southern Living, Spirit, Saveur, The Local Palate, and other publications.

Currently, I am writing a personal narrative about my journey into the heart of barbecue, specifically whole-hog barbecue — a culinary art form that is disappearing and experiencing a renaissance at the exact same moment — and the professional pitmasters who make a living firing, smoking, flipping, and chopping 200+ pound pigs. That book is out in the Spring of 2016 by Simon & Schuster/Touchstone.

In addition to the freelance life, I wear a second, scholarly, hat, carving out a small niche in the academic world. I hold an MA from the New School for Social Research and a PhD in History from Tulane University. My first book, Imagining the Creole City (Louisiana State University Press, Fall 2014), is an intellectual and literary study of a circle of writers in nineteenth-century New Orleans. I am presently a Visiting Professor of Urban Studies at Bard Early College New Orleans and a part-time professor at Tulane University. I have also contributed essays to collections published by the University of Georgia Press and Vanderbilt University Press.

I call New Orleans home, and live part-time in a hundred-plus-year-old church in St. Martinville, Louisiana.

I can be reached at: rienfertel@gmail.com