My walking friends, please check this out:  Adrian Leeds's delightful and beautifully photographed account of our stroll in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery this past Sunday. It's full of fascinating historical references and current insights by her, all built around my walking tour called "Deathless Writers in the Pere Lachaise Cemetery."  A grand merci to Adrian for this highly enjoyable romp.

http://www.adrianleeds.com/parler-paris-past-issues/archive/view/listid-1-mailinglist/mailid-421-pp29-4-13

Colette and Willy on the Rue Jacob

Here's a link to a piece I wrote for Richard Nahem's lively I Prefer Paris blog. It came out today. There are other pieces by my on his blog too, found on the right column in the welcome page.  I hope you enjoy it:

http://www.ipreferparis.net/2013/04/david-burkes-writers-in-paris-colette-and-willy-on-the-rue-jacob.html

A beautiful day in the neighborhood, the neighborhood being the Place de la Contrescarpe/Rue Mouffetard quarter of the Latin Quarter, and the day being yesterday, Sunday.  A little nippy, perhaps, but not in the sun under this perfectly clear blue sky. I should have shot some pictures, but I was too engaged in talking with my walking friends about my local heroes Hemingway, Joyce, Balzac, Hugo and other writers.  Here we are at the Rue du Pot de Fer, where George Orwell began his career as a writer.  That was with Down and Out in Paris and London, his first book.  

My walkers in this picture are on my right Pamela Jensen and on my left Ruthanne Martin and Jennifer Wilks.  They were surprised to find out that Orwell's name was not Orwell. They wondered why he used a pseudonym. And why the name Orwell?  Where did that now-famous name come from?  And what was his real name?  I've done this walk many times, but I've yet to have anyone come up with that.  Food for a Google ... or far more amusing, a walk in Paris.  

Spring is here (almost)

Bonjour, all you friends in Paris ... or who will be coming one day.  

Sunday, April 7th, marks the start of my Spring program of David Burke's Writers in Paris Walking Tours. Forget about "April is the cruelest month."  That was London, not Paris.  The time and the place for literary walks is here. 

The first walk is A Band of Outsiders: Place de la Contrescarpe/Rue Mouffetard, featuring Hemingway, Joyce, Orwell, Verlaine, Balzac, and Victor Hugo in a dramatic scene from Les Miserables.

On Tuesday, April 9th, it's "Lost Generation" Montparnasse and Beyond, with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, and other great and colorful 1920s writers, and later, Henry Miller and Anais Nin, Samuel Beckett, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir ...

For my full range of offerings click on WALKS and SCHEDULE in www.writersinpariswalkingtours,blogspot.fr

Happy walking with my army of writers!