I've been in New Orleans for three days now and you could almost say it's an anachronism. What Paranormal Romance writer hasn't been to New Orleans? It's like we flock here to the land of Anne Rice and her vampires. Us, and our characters, live on the soul of this Mecca on the Mississippi River. When you scribble away in cafés here and someone asks what you're doing they seem almost resigned to the fact that you're going to say "I'm a writer." Invariably they ask "vampires?"

I've thrown a few people over the past couple of days with my response. "Nope, demons." The voodooines and the hoodooines want to chat. Psychics want to read my future and tell me the pitfalls that come from messing with the little devils. Because here, well everyone talks about the bloodsuckers but demons? They aren't just fiction down here. Anyone who saw Katrina knows that.

Vampires may hunt from the third floor of the Old Ursuline Convent but a demon's responsible for the murders outside. Everyone knows vampires don't rip the throats out of their victims –wastes too much blood. Demons, those are living, breathing creatures down here. And you don't mess with them. In fact, it might be considered best if you take yourself out to the St. Louis Cemetery No 1 and stop by Marie Lavaeu's tomb. She's been known to lift the spirits haunting people from beyond the grave.

Why do we, as a profession, flock here? Is it just because of the vampire Lestat and those Mayfair Witches? Do we find this place to be home because Anne Rice gave us legitimacy here before we had it anywhere else in America? Is that why so many writers choose places like New Orleans or the English Moors to set their stories in? Is it just something about the place? Or the history of being like those who came before us, a never ending line of writers reaching back to our foremothers – and the occasional forefather—of the romance genre and paying homage to what they've given us? Or is it something we can't describe?

For me, I've been to this city nine times in my life. I've wandered the Garden District; eaten hard, overpriced beignets at Café du Monde; I've gone back to my little café hidden in the district and gotten the real thing instead. I've drank my way down Bourbon and I've taken part in both a first and second line in the cemeteries. I've seen most of it, done quite a bit, drunk myself silly more than once and eaten myself sick every single time. After nine times it's no longer a surprise. I know what I like and I keep going back.  

But I keep coming back. And this time I brought my kids. Why? New Orleans has some part of home in it for me.  It's not just the music, or the people, or the parties. It's this thing that comes over you in the still of a French Quarter morning once the drunks have been rousted back to their hotels. It's underneath the cypress in Audubon Park. It's hidden in little nooks and crannies of the Garden District. It's this indefinable feeling when the street car reaches Tulane tower.

I can't tell you what it is. I can't really describe it. But it seems like stories lurk there. The beginnings of scenes that could be. Characters that are yet to be born inside my head, wiggling their way in and catching a ride back to my keyboard. I don't know why we flock here or what we think we might find. All I know is that we keep coming and, in my case, always find something new has hitched a ride back with me.