Born and raised in the culturally rich region of Acadiana in South Louisiana, Jordan LaHaye Fontenot’s work as a writer and editor is an ongoing exploration of how the past interacts with the present, in a place where tradition reigns.  

A graduate of Louisiana State University and the recipient of the 2018 Sarah Sue Goldsmith Award for Nonfiction, her writing has appeared in regional and international publications including inRegister, Atlas Obscura, and the Oxford American. 

She was a Writer-in-Residence at NUNU Arts and Culture Collective in Arnaudville in 2022 and 2023 and a featured writer at the 2021 annual Society of Professional Journalists Conference, the 2023 Louisiana Book Festival, and the 2023 Delta Mouth Literary Festival. Her work has been published most extensively in the Louisiana arts and culture magazine Country Roads, which she has overseen as editor since 2018.  

Jordan is the author of the National Bestseller HOME OF THE HAPPY: A MURDER ON THE CAJUN PRAIRIE—an investigative memoir that follows her journey as she unravels the mysteries surrounding the 1983 kidnapping and murder of her great grandfather, Aubrey LaHaye in Mamou, Louisiana.