Denise Lewis Patrick

Denise Lewis Patrick writes for young readers with close attention to family, place, and the ways children make sense of upheaval. Finding Someplace centers on thirteen-year-old Reesie Boone, an aspiring fashion designer in New Orleans whose birthday plans are overtaken by Hurricane Katrina. After escaping rising water with an elderly neighbor and rejoining her family, Reesie must confront displacement and the difficult question of where home now lies. Macmillan describes the novel as both a family's reconstruction and a young girl's search for herself. Patrick grew up in Natchitoches, Louisiana, and recalls weekly childhood visits to the library. That connection to Louisiana, books, and making things gives Reesie's creative ambitions a grounded place within the larger historical disaster.