Jason and Paula Morell have lived and worked together all over the United States for the past 20 years.
Jason earned his culinary degree in 1995 and has worked in such esteemed restaurants as Commander's Palace in New Orleans (which won the James Beard Award for Best Restaurant while he was the Saute' Chef there), the Boca Raton Resort and Club (where he was an Operational Sous Chef at the 5-Star, 5-Diamond Resort), and he was the Chef while Paula was the Manager of Martinique Bistro in New Orleans, which was featured in Southern Living. In Arkansas, Jason designed and opened Sonny Williams' Steak Room, and then brought Paula in to manage the front of the house and work alongside him in making Sonny's one of Little Rock's premier restaurants. Most recently Jason was the Chef for Simply the Best Catering, which included private dinners for President Clinton. Jason comes from a family of artists, including his late father and great-grandfather.
Paula received her M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans, and her short stories, poetry, and creative non-fiction have won numerous awards and appeared in dozens of literary journals and magazines, including Short Story Journal, New Works Review, Outsider Ink, Southern Hum, Foliate Oak, Ascent Aspirations, Passport Journal, Quills and Pixels, The Double Dealer Redux, The Little Rock Free Press, The Arkansas Women's Journal, and Word Salad. Her critically acclaimed novel-in-stories broken water was released in 2004, and her creative writing workshop Invoking the Gifts (2005) is being used by teachers, art centers, and drug and alcohol treatement centers all over the U.S. Three times she has been featured as an emerging writer at the International Conference on the Short Story in English. She is the Founding Editor of Temenos Publishing, the Executive Producer and Host of Tales from the South, and is listed on the Arkansas Arts Council Arts in Education Artist Roster. She also teaches creative writing at Pulaski Technical College in North Little Rock.
Jason and Paula live in Little Rock with their children Annaliese, Sophia, and Jude, whom they homeschool.
