Riffs: Richmond Odom (pen name Kameron Gray), local attorney, author of House of Blood and Fire

“I was advised that in order to avoid confusion between my nonfiction and fiction work, I should probably use a pen name for the fiction, ergo, Kameron Gray (my 20-year-old daughter Katie’s choice). I let Katie choose the name because she inspired me to write House of Blood and Fire. One day, a couple of years ago, we were jogging on the levee and passed the gutted ruins of The Cottage. ‘Dad,’ she asked, ‘what do you know about that place?’ I told her what I’d heard as a boy—that an LSU professor murdered a woman in the house and then burned it down. We then challenged each other to find out what really happened.”