Words and Music 2025
Wednesday-Saturday
November 19-22, 2025
Eve Abrams is an audio producer, writer, editor, and educator whose work centers on amplifying the voices from her adopted hometown, New Orleans. She produced the award-winning podcast Hot Farm, about climate change and food, and the Peabody Finalist Unprisoned, which tells stories at the intersection of the criminal legal system and human lives. Eve has edited the award-winning shows Sea Change, Banned, TriPod, and Fine Gorilla Person. Eve's radio and podcast stories air on a host of national programs such as Reveal, Morning Edition, Marketplace, All Things Considered, 30 for 30, and This American Life. Eve is the coauthor of the book, Preservation Hall and was a 2017 Robert Rauschenberg Artist as Activist Fellow.
Andrea Armstrong is a 2023 MacArthur Fellow and the Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor at Loyola University New Orleans, College of Law, where she teaches incarceration law, constitutional law, criminal procedure, and race and the law. Prof. Armstrong founded IncarcerationTransparency.org, a database and website that documents and memorializes deaths behind bars in Louisiana and supports similar efforts across the United States. Her interdisciplinary research focuses on carceral mortality, healthcare, and labor; the intersection of race and conditions of incarceration; and public oversight of detention facilities. Her research has been profiled by New Yorker Magazine, and has appeared in the Atlantic, Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, the New York Times, and Stanford Law & Policy Review, among others.
Bruce Sunpie Barnes is a multi instrumental musician, book author, photographer, Big Chief of the Northside Skull and Bone Gang, film actor, who defines his musical style as Afro-Louisiana music. Sunpie is a former Park Ranger with the National Park Service, former High School Biology teacher, former Professional Football player and current 23 year member of the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club.
A native New Orleanian, Larry Bagneris began his civil rights activism as a student at St. Augustine High School. He graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana and moved to Houston, Texas, where he was a two-term president of the city’s Gay Political Caucus, chairperson of Gay Pride week, and, in 1979, founder of Houston’s Gay Pride parade. Bagneris returned to New Orleans in the 1990s and became a lobbyist for the NO/AIDS Task Force. He served four mayoral administrations as executive director of New Orleans’s Human Relations Commission before retiring in 2018.
Stacey Balkun is the author of Sweetbitter and co-editor of Fiolet & Wing. Winner of a PEN America grant, her work appears in Best New Poets, Mississippi Review, and Pleiades, among anthologies and journals. She holds a PhD from the University of Mississippi, Oxford and teaches creative writing online at The Poetry Barn and at the University of New Orleans.
Jack B. Bedell is Professor of English at Southeastern Louisiana University where he also edits Louisiana Literature and directs the Louisiana Literature Press. Jack’s work has appeared in HAD, Heavy Feather, Brawl Lit, Moist, and other journals. He’s also had pieces included in Best Microfiction and Best Spiritual Literature. His latest collection is Ghost Forest (Mercer University Press, 2024). He served as Louisiana Poet Laureate 2017-2019.
Daniel Bedrosian has been the keyboardist for George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic for the past twenty-three years, making him the longest tenured keyboard player in the band’s history. In addition to performing with Clinton and company, he has worked, recorded or performed with many musical icons such as Snoop Dogg, Chuck D and Flavor Flav, Ice Cube, Shavo Odadjian from System of a Down, Kendrick Lamar, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Erykah Badu, Queen Latifah, Mumford & Sons, RZA, Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Sheila E, Wu-Tang Clan, The Roots, MonoNeon, Cory Henry, Robert Glasper, Drake, and many more. He has appeared on 25 Strong: The BET Silver Anniversary Special, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, The Carson Daly Show, I’m from Rolling Stone, The Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Mike Judge's Tales from the Tour Bus, The Monique Show, MTV in several nations, and many more. Danny's keyboard and Synthesizer work has been featured in the major animated motion picture Trolls World Tour. Danny wrote The Authorized P-Funk Song Reference: Official Canon of Parliament Funkadelic 1956-2023 published by Rowman and Littlefield, and the book became a bestseller for the publisher.
Pamela Blackmon is Programs Manager for the Preservation Hall Foundation.
Ariadne Blayde is a New Orleans-based author and playwright. Her debut novel, Ash Tuesday, is out from indie press April Gloaming. Her short fiction has won the Tennessee Williams Saints & Sinners Fiction Contest and the Quantum Shorts People’s Choice Prize, was runner-up for the 2024 Patty Friedmann Fiction Competition, and has been published in various anthologies. Her play The Other Room is performed internationally. She writes speculative fiction, historical fiction, and work focusing on social and environmental justice. Ariadne moonlights as a ghost tour guide in the French Quarter.
Megan Braden-Perry is an award-winning multigenerational Black Creole New Orleans 7th Ward native, who lives by the Igbo proverb, "Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” In June 2025, she founded The New Orleans East Sunshine Weekly, a nonprofit weekly newspaper “uplifting and enlightening New Orleans East through good news." Formerly she was a staff writer at NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune and Gambit Weekly, but thought she could speak better for New Orleanians on a national level. Her bylines include The Washington Post, Oxford American, Bon Appetit, Epicurious, Today Show, Jezebel, NY Daily News, The Infatuation and Thrillist. She was a 2019 Jack Jones Literary Arts fellow and spends her free time with her son, Franklin. Her best friend Jenny once said she'd "talk to the devil for a sandwich," and that's the most accurate biographical detail to date.
Laura Brown lives and writes in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her short fiction appears in journals such as Hemingway Shorts, Barely South Review, Welter, The Good Life Review, and the New Orleans Public Library Anthology series. She also has a few manuscripts in the can … if you know anyone!
Thi Bui is a writer and artist from Việt Nam, California, and New York, now planting roots in New Orleans. Best known for her graphic memoir, The Best We Could Do, which tells the story of her family amidst Việt Nam's struggles for independence, she has also been a longtime educator in public high schools, a professor of comics, an organizer and artist-activist, an ambivalent sculptor and puppeteer, a fledgling screenwriter, and an award-winning illustrator of children’s books and comics journalism. Author photo: Marion Hill. IG: @ma.rion.hnh
Kristen Buras has been an anti-racist activist, teacher, and researcher for over three decades. She is the cofounder and director of Urban South Grassroots Research Collective in New Orleans. Her writing focuses on Black education and the freedom struggle. Her new book is What We Stand to Lose: Black Teachers, the Culture They Created, and the Closure of a New Orleans High School. She is also the author of Charter Schools, Race, and Urban Space: Where the Market Meets Grassroots Resistance and coauthor of Pedagogy, Policy, and the Privatized City: Stories of Dispossession and Defiance from New Orleans. She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Buras was born and raised in New Orleans. Her research is community-based and seeks to elevate the culture, knowledge, and experiences of the city's African American communities. For more, visit www.kristenburas.com.
LeeAnna Callon is a Mississippi native but has called New Orleans home for over a decade. By day, she manages a local independent bookstore. By night, she sleeps. Her interests include reading books, collecting books, immortality, haunted dolls, and writing the occasional poem. Her poetry has appeared in the Tilted House Review, Nurture, Lucky Jefferson, Lit.202, Ghost Girls Zine, and Trampoline. Her poem Reverie was featured as a broadside by Lucky Bean Press in March 2022.
Bryan Camp is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and the University of New Orleans’ Low-Residency MFA program. He started his first novel, The City of Lost Fortunes, in the backseat of his parents’ car as they evacuated for Hurricane Katrina. He has been, at various points in his life: a security guard at a stockcar race track, a printer in a flag factory, an office worker in an oil refinery, and a high school English teacher. He can be found on bluesky: @bryancamp and at bryancamp.com. He lives in New Orleans with his wife and their cats, one of whom is named after a superhero.
Brooke Champagne is a native New Orleanian and the award-winning author of Nola Face: A Latina’s Life in the Big Easy, named a Best Book of 2024 from Kirkus Reviews. Her work has been selected as Notable in several editions of the Best American Essays anthology series, and she is the recipient of the 2023-2024 Alabama State Council on the Arts Literary Fellowship in Prose. She is at work on her next book project, Drive-Thru Daiquiri, which will be published with LSU Press. Champagne lives with her husband and children in Tuscaloosa, where she is Assistant Professor of Creative Writing in the MFA Program at the University of Alabama.
By day, Danny Cherry Jr. is an MBA-havin', caffeine-addicted corporate drone. But by night, he's a novelist, short story writer, essayist, and a sometimes-journalist. He's a frequent contributor to Antigravity Magazine, and has written for: Buzzfeed News, Politico, Progressive Magazine, and more; and published fiction for Apex Magazine, Hexagon, Fiyah Literary Magazine, amongst others. He's the President of Third Lantern Lit, and his work has been acknowledged in Locus Magazine recommended reading list for 2022, as well as the Best American Sci-fi and Fantasy 2023 notable stories list. He was also selected for Gambit's New Orleans “40 under 40” class of 2025. His novel is titled The Pike Boys and is available wherever you buy books.
Adam Clay is the author of five books of poetry; his most recent book is Circle Back (Milkweed Editions, 2024). He teaches at Louisiana State University and edits Autocorrect, a journal of poetry and poetics.
Sophie Cull is a criminal justice reform advocate who has published on the death penalty, life sentences, and prosecutorial misconduct. As a cofounder of The Visiting Room Project, she helped create the world’s largest collection of filmed interviews with people serving life without parole. Originally from Australia, she began her career in New Orleans, assisting legal organizations defending individuals on Louisiana’s death row.
Hali Dardar operates on a spectrum of multi-media artist to business administration. Some relatable dots on that gradient are live stream production, community cultivation, archive design, and memory studies. She is the co-founder of the Houma Language Project, and Bvlbancha Public access. Current work happens with Art Transit Authority, and past work includes Smithsonian Language Vitality Initiatives, Shift Collective, and Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities.
Naomi DeBerry is an avid reader and the author of My Daddy Needs a Gift. As a child who has experienced the fear of losing a parent, she's made it her mission to promote wellness. In 2025, Naomi was selected to TIME Magazine’s first-ever "Girls of the Year," making her the only girl on the list from the U.S. Her organ donor advocacy through literacy has helped bring awareness to all ages. Naomi aspires to become a transplant surgeon someday.
Michelle Dumont is a children's author, editor, and writing coach who blends her passion for literacy with her public health background. As a clinical research coordinator with a Master's in Global Health, she brings a unique perspective to the craft of writing. Her debut children's book, Phoebe Cakes: A Mardi Gras Tail (Susan Schadt Press), quickly became a beloved addition to New Orleans' carnival season titles. Her third book, Chuck the Termite (Brother Mockingbird Publishing), is set for release in 2026. Michelle is currently pursuing a doctorate at Celia Scott Weatherhead School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, where her research will explore the long-term impact of early childhood literacy on adult mental health. She believes that children's literature not only fuels a love of reading but also lays the foundation for a healthier adulthood. She is passionate about helping others find their voices and share their stories.
Calvin Duncan is the founder and director of the Light of Justice program, which is focused on improving legal access for incarcerated individuals. Falsely accused of murder at the age of nineteen, he endured a life sentence without the possibility of parole in Louisiana prisons for more than twenty-eight years. While incarcerated, he became an inmate counsel substitute, or jailhouse lawyer, helping hundreds of fellow prisoners challenge wrongful convictions and unjust sentences. His efforts have contributed to landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions, including Smith v. Cain (2012) and Ramos v. Louisiana (2020). Duncan holds a JD from Lewis & Clark Law School and resides in New Orleans, where he continues his advocacy on behalf of those still behind bars.
Desiree S. Evans is a Louisiana writer whose work spans poetry, fiction, and nonfiction for kids, teens, and adults. She is co-editor of The Black Girl Survives in This One (Flatiron, 2025), the bestselling horror anthology that won the 2025 Locus Award. Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and has appeared in literary journals such as Obsidian, Gulf Coast, The Offing, and other venues. Desiree was most recently a 2024-2025 Steinbeck Fellow in fiction, awarded through the Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University. She was previously the 2021-2022 Gulf South Writer in the Woods, awarded through Tulane University’s New Orleans Center for the Gulf South and A Studio in the Woods, and the 2022-2023 Southern Studies Fellowship in Arts and Letters Writer-in-Residence, awarded through the Hub City Writers Project. Desiree is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, and the Michener Center for Writers at The University of Texas at Austin, where she received her MFA in fiction.
Marlana Botnick Fireman (she/they) is a queer and Jewish writer and editor in New Orleans. She completed her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans, where she was awarded the Joanna Leake Prize for Fiction Thesis. Marlana’s work can be found in the Southeast Review, Reckon Review, The Hooghly Review, Sad Girl Diaries, and elsewhere. They are a former Associate Fiction Editor for Bayou Magazine. Marlana was born and raised in central Ohio. When not reading or writing, Marlana can be found crafting with their partner or playing with their goofy dog, Dill. She can be found on Instagram and Substack: @firelightdisco
Mark Folse is a poet, retired journalist, blogger and IT factotum and native of New Orleans. His poems appeared in the Peauxdunque Review, New Laurel Review, Ellipsis, The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, The New Delta Review, Metazen, Ellipsis, Unlikely Stories and The Maple Leaf Rag. He was a member of the post-Katrina/Federal Flood NOLA Bloggers writing and activist group, and his work from that period was anthologized in What We Know: New Orleans as Home, Please Forward, The Louisiana Anthology and A Howling in the Wires.
Gina Ferrara is the current Poet Laureate of Louisiana. She has five poetry collections including her latest, Amiss, published by Dos Madres Press in 2023. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Callaloo, The Poetry Ireland Review and The Southern Review and nominated for a Best of the Net and a Pushcart in 2024. Since 2007, she has curated The Poetry Buffet, a monthly reading series in New Orleans. She teaches at Delgado Community College and lives near Bayou St. John with her husband, Jonathan Kline, and their bulldog.
Gladney, GRAMMY-nominated multi-instrumentalist and composer, is one of the foremost creatives in New Orleans and a leading contemporary exponent of the saxophone. A 2024 Foundation for Louisiana World Maker, Gladney is a sixth-generation New Orleans native hailing from the city’s iconic Lower 9th Ward. With a professional career that began at just 12, Gladney brings a wealth of experience, an infectious spirit, and a signature “Gladney Bow” hairstyle to every performance, making him a truly unforgettable artist. Currently, Gladney leads his self-titled band, with the 2021 debut single “Selenite” marking the beginning of the band’s recording journey. He is a proud member of the Recording Academy and serves as the woodwind instructor at his alma mater, NOCCA, leading the next generation of musicians.
Elise Glassman lives and writes in New Orleans. Her stories and creative nonfiction have appeared in twenty-plus fine literary journals and anthologies including Main Street Rag, The Portland Review, The Metaworker Literary Magazine and most recently Thimble Lit Magazine. She's also an assistant fiction editor at Pithead Chapel.
nat gove is a poet and writer. Their poems have appeared in the LMNL Anthology, Queer South Zine, Saints+Sinners Poetry 2024, Noyo Review, Bayou Review, Snapdragon’s Anthology, and has been recognized with a Lisbon, Portugal residency from DISQUIET 2025. Born and raised in rural Missouri, she currently lives in New Orleans on a street where wild chickens roam.
Lenora Condoll Gray was born and raised in the 7th Ward. She taught in New Orleans public schools for almost 40 years. Condoll was a social studies teacher at the historic G. W. Carver Senior High School in the Desire area. As a teacher, she aimed to heighten students' civic consciousness, engaging them in local and national politics. For years, she led Carver's chapter of "Close Up," a program that afforded students nationally an opportunity to experience the role of government beyond the classroom, and she traveled with students annually to the nation's capital. Over her career, she taught civics, US history, world history, free enterprise, and applied economics. Condoll graduated from McDonogh No. 35 High School and Southern University at Baton Rouge. She was a tireless advocate for Black students, widely respected in the school and surrounding community, and recognized in myriad ways for her contributions to education and the struggle for civil rights in New Orleans.
Kelly Harris-DeBerry is a poet, freelance writer and independent scholar. Her work spans from poetry to essays to non-profit consulting. She holds a BA in Communications and MFA in Creative Writing. She is the author of Freedom Knows My Name and the chapbook, HomeGirl. Her work has been published in various journals. Her poem, Post-Katrina Blues, has been translated and on display in Germany. The Cave Canem Fellow has worked as an advisor to the Smithsonian’s literary mapping project and mentor for Literary Cleveland's BreakThrough Residency.
Dr. Candice Love Jackson is a literary scholar, writer, and cultural curator whose work bridges African American literature, media studies, and romance suspense fiction. She explores themes of identity, history, and representation through critical analysis, storytelling, and community engagement. Holding forth a passion for the disenfranchised and non-mainstreamed, Dr. Jackson has focused upon such areas in America as Popular Culture, Black Speculative Fiction, and film. She also serves as the director of the JXN Film Festival, and co-host a podcast, Allegedly Higher, which focuses on popular culture and higher education through a human centered lens. She published her debut novel, Deserving Grace in 2019 and its sequel, Finding His Treasure in 2021. She is currently working on her next project, Riding Shotgun.
Skye Jackson was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. Her work has appeared in RHINO, The Southern Review, Palette Poetry, RATTLE and elsewhere. She is an award-winning poet who has also been a finalist for various literary prizes. She is the Chairwoman of the New Orleans Poetry Festival and served as the Writer-in-Residence of the Jack Kerouac House this past summer. Her debut poetry collection, Libre, was published by Regalo Press and distributed by Simon & Schuster.
Wes Jamison is an assistant professor of English at Defiance College. They were awarded the 2021 Quill Prose Award for their essay collection Carrion, and their essay “and Melancholia” was selected as a winner of Essay Press's Chapbook Contest. Their work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and selected as Notables in Best American Essays. Their work also appears in DIAGRAM, the Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, After the Art, and elsewhere. Jamison currently lives in the Midwest with their partner and cat.
Kelly Jones is a writer, editor, and librarian who currently calls New Orleans home. Some of their favorite things are manatees, glitter, and crushed ice in fizzy drinks. Prior to working in libraries they spent a decade in the service industry, dabbled in academia, and managed the outreach and education department of a creative reuse nonprofit. They currently spend their free time helping out with operations on TELEPHONE (an international art project), stress baking, gardening, and spoiling a cat called Rufus.
Ambata Kazi is a writer and editor born and raised in New Orleans with a long lineage in the city. She received a Master of Arts in English and a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of New Orleans. Her fiction writing has been featured in Carve, Torch Literary Arts, Muslim American Writers at Home, CRAFT, midnight & indigo, and other publications. Her first novel, Far Away from Here, published with SparkPress in August 2025. She is the senior editor at Sapelo Square, an online multidisciplinary journal that centers Black Muslim histories and contemporary realities. Her website is ambatakazi.com.
Michael Kleber-Diggs is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. His debut poetry collection, Worldly Things (Milkweed Editions, 2021), won the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. Among other places, Kleber-Diggs’ writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Poem-a-Day, Poetry Daily, Poetry Northwest, Potomac Review, Hunger Mountain, Memorious, and various anthologies. Since 2016, Michael has been an instructor with the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. He also teaches Creative Writing in Augsburg University’s low-res MFA program and at Saint Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists. He lives in St. Paul.
Craig Klein is born and bred New Orleans and has constantly been exposed to a diverse mixture of music cultures. As a high school trombone player hanging around the French Quarter his love of New Orleans music was solidified when he stumbled upon Preservation Hall in the mid 70’s. Craig has a vast musical experience and has played on well over 150 records, including his first solo record, New Orleans Trombonisms (2004). He has played with the best: Dr. John, The Neville Brothers, George Porter, Leroy Jones, Tori Amos, Dave Bartholomew, REM, Allen Toussaint, Preservation Hall, The Palm Court Jazz Band, The Jazz Vipers, Bruce Hornsby, Storyville Stompers, New Orleans Nightcrawlers . . . just to name a few!
Julie Elise Landry’s work has appeared in A-minor Magazine, Midway Journal, Vassar Review, and more. She holds an MA in English from the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and she is pursuing an MFA in poetry from the University of New Orleans. In 2023, she received an Honorable Mention for UNO’s Vassar Miller Poetry Award. She serves as an Associate Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine and as the emcee for Silver Room, UNO’s virtual reading series.
“My name is Latrevin. I am from Picayune, Mississippi, and I am currently 16 years of age. I am an artist in the drill rap scene, known by the name TGREENDASICKEST. I spent most of my life moving back and forth between Mississippi and Louisiana, but I ended up moving to Louisiana at 14 for good. I started writing poetry to express what I am going through, how I feel about the ones I love and hurt, and to show people what it looks like behind the eyes of an incarcerated youth in America. I aim to give them comfort that they are not alone. My biggest inspirations growing up were Tupac Shakur and Oprah Winfrey. They showed me that anything is possible as a young man of mixed race in the US. If you can make it through the night, there will always be a brighter day.”
Daniel W.K. Lee (李華強) is a third-generation refugee, queer, Cantonese American born in Kuching, Malaysia. He earned his MFA in Creative Writing at The New School, and his debut collection of poetry, Anatomy of Want, was published by QueerMojo/Rebel Satori Press. He lives in New Orleans with this whippet Camden.
Devorah Levy-Pearlman is a writer, poet, and community organizer. Her poems have appeared in Wild Roof Journal, Disco Kitchen Magazine, and Poets Reading the News. Her nonfiction essay, “The Hallowing Can’t be Stopped” is forthcoming in the 2026 LMNL anthology. Born and raised in California, she has lived in New Orleans since 2018.
Tracey Patavian Lucillience Lewis was born in Watts, CA. Patavian, through her incredible intonation at a very young age, landed her on albums with granddad George and the P-Funk All-Stars at age 4 or 5. Additionally Patavian has been writing poetry since she was 7 years old. After completing school and having her first child, Patavian joined her grandfather's band George Clinton and Parliament Funkadelic as a Vocalist with the group in 2014. She appeared on the Funkadelic album First ya gotta Shake the Gate in 2014, and the Parliament album Medicaid Fraud Dogg in 2018. She performed at major festivals around the world including but not limited to Glastonbury in the UK, The Blue Note jazz fest in CA, colour's Cafe fest in Belgium, Byron bay blues fest in Australia, Coachella, and many more. She appeared on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon singing backup vocals with the Roots. She formed a vocal duo with her cousin, fellow pfunk vocalist Tonysha Nelson and they released at least three singles with accompanying music videos. Patavian also appeared in the music video I'm Gona make you sick by Parliament ftg George Clinton and the rapper Scarface. She has performed in North America, Europe, Asia, Australia and Oceania with P-Funk over the span of 6-7 years, before taking time off for her children. In 2024, Patavian released her debut solo album and poetry chap book both entitled the Red Balloon. Both have been heralded as incredible works and have sold extremely well. Patavian is currently raising her kids while simultaneously in school to attain her degree in Nursing.
Dawn Logsdon’s career has been dedicated to making films about civic issues and city life, particularly at the neighborhood level. She’s from New Orleans and directed and produced Faubourg Treme: The Untold Story of Black New Orleans (2008), which premiered locally at the New Orleans Film Festival and nationally at the Tribeca International Film Festival. It won the SFIFF Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary and was a PBS Black History Month feature presentation three years in a row. Dawn co-directed and edited Big Joy: The Adventures of James Broughton (2013) and Lindy Boggs: Steel and Velvet (2008). Dawn edited the Sundance Award-winning Paragraph 175 by Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Freidman, Academy Award-nominated Weather Underground by Sam Green, Emmy award-winning Have You Heard from Johannesburg? by Connie Field, and the Peabody award-winning The Castro by Peter Stein. Short films she produced and directed include Tomboy, which was exhibited at the Whitney Museum and aired on PBS. Dawn received a BA in Philosophy from UC Berkeley. Her honors include a Soros OSI Media Fellowship, California Arts Council Artist Residency, BAVC Media Maker Award, Djerassi Artist Residency, Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship, New Orleans Contemporary Art Center Artist Fellowship, and the New Orleans Arts Council Award.
Annell López is the winner of the Louise Meriwether First Book Prize and the author of the short story collection I’ll Give You a Reason, a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for best debut short story collection. Named a best short story collection of 2024 by Electric Literature, I’ll Give You a Reason has been longlisted for the Maya Angelou Book Award, the Reforma Latinx Book Award, and shortlisted for the Clark Fiction Prize. Most recently, López was recognized as a Gambit’s 40 under 40. Her work has appeared in Guernica, American Short Fiction, The Common, Brooklyn Rail, Refinery29, and TIME. López received her MFA from the University of New Orleans, where she was awarded the Joanna Leake Fiction Prize. She is the Creative Writing Chair at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.
C. Liegh McInnis is a poet, short story writer, Prince scholar, 2025 Finalist for the Mississippi Poet Laureate, co-founder of the Jackson State Creative Writing Program, former editor/publisher of Black Magnolias, and author of eight books—four collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction (Scripts: Sketches and Tales of Urban Mississippi), one work of literary criticism (The Lyrics of Prince: A Literary Look), one co-authored work, Brother Hollis: The Sankofa of a Movement Man, discussing Mississippi Civil Rights icon, and former First Runner-Up of the Amiri Baraka/Sonia Sanchez Poetry Award. Additionally, he has been published in periodicals and anthologies.
Mary Miller is the author of two novels and two short story collections. Her most recent book, Biloxi: A Novel (Liveright 2019), received starred reviews from Booklist and Kirkus. Her stories and essays have appeared in The Paris Review, The Best of McSweeney's Quarterly, Oxford American, Pushcart Prize XLIV, Norton's Seagull Book of Stories, and American Short Fiction. She is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas and a former Grisham writer in residence at the University of Mississippi. She lives in Oxford and is an Associate Professor of English and Creative Writing at Mississippi University for Women.
Sia Moon is a young New Orleans-based writer. Her writing has been featured in the Eunoia Review, NCE AASA Daily Conference Online, Fifth Wheel Press, Chewers, and other online publications. In print, her work can be found in Unbound and upcoming in A Split Sun. Her words, which reveal both the visceral and the invisible, are occasionally award-winning, and she is a 2025 Sundress Publications “Best of Net” nominee.
Juan J. Morales is the son of an Ecuadorian mother and Puerto Rican father and grew up in Colorado. He is the author of four poetry collections, including The Handyman’s Guide to End Times and his latest, Dream of the Bird Tattoo, published University of New Mexico Press. Recent poems have appeared in The Laurel Review, Breakbeats Vol. 4 LatiNEXT, Acentos Review, terrain.org, South Dakota Review, Sugar House Review, and Poetry. Morales has received fellowships from CantoMundo, Macondo, Longleaf Writers Conference, and he has served as the editor/publisher of Pilgrimage Press. He lives in Pueblo, Colorado and is an Assistant Professor of English at Colorado College.
A native of Mississippi, Benjamin Morris is the author of one book of nonfiction and three books of poetry, most recently The Singing River (Belle Point Press, 2025). He holds an MSc in Creative Writing from the University of Edinburgh and PhD in Archaeology from the University of Cambridge. His work has appeared in The Oxford American, Lithub, and The Southern Review, and received fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission and Tulane University. He lives in New Orleans.
Michelle (M.A.) Nicholson is a New Orleans poet, editor, educator, journalist, and arts-organizer with work featured in Best New Poets 2022 and Winter in America (Again) anthologies, as well as Trampoline Poetry, Peauxdunque Review, Diode Poetry Journal, New Orleans Review, Tilted House Review, and elsewhere. An M.F.A. graduate from the University of New Orleans—where she served as Associate Poetry Editor for Bayou Magazine—M.A. was the recipient of the 2021 Andrea-Saunders Gereighty Academy of American Poets Award and was Kenyon Review’s 2024 Peter Taylor Fellow. Her debut poetry collection Around the Gate was selected for Word Works' 2023 Hilary Tham Capital.
Nina Muñoz is a Honduran-American author whose work revolves around the subjects of cultural identity, womanhood, and sexuality. Her short stories and essays have been featured in The Weight Journal and UMBRA. She has been shortlisted by the William Faulkner literary competition. She currently studies creative writing at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts.
Seth Neblett is a multi-talented photographer, director, writer, and creative visionary whose work spans music, film, and literature. Born in Highland Park, Michigan, he is the son of funk pioneers—Mallia “Queen of Funk” Franklin of Parliament-Funkadelic and Nathaniel Neblett of New Birth—giving him a unique perspective on artistry and legacy. In 2010, Seth founded ImageWorx Media & Management, where he has directed music videos for legends like Chaka Khan, Miki Howard, and Vesta, and photographed iconic moments featured in Billboard, JET!, TV One’s Unsung, and The Jennifer Hudson Show. His cover photography has graced albums by celebrated artists across soul, R&B, and funk. In 2025, he authored Mothership Connected: The Women of Parliament-Funkadelic, the first book to chronicle the groundbreaking but often overlooked contributions of P-Funk’s women. Through every project, Seth Neblett continues to merge heritage with innovation, preserving musical history while creating new cultural narratives.
Margaret Orr retired from WDSU-TV after 45 years. She was Chief Meteorologist and recognized with Emmy’s for her coverage of hurricanes and tornadoes. Many credit her with helping to save lives during dangerous weather. She was also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Press Club of New Orleans and the Louisiana Association of Broadcasters. In 2025, the broadcasters association also inducted her into its Hall of Fame. In 2024 The Krewe of Muses selected Margaret as the Honorary Muse. As she prepared to retire she rode through the streets of New Orleans in a big red stiletto. She made sure it rained glittered shoes. Scrim the runaway pup, who caught the imagination of people around the world also inspired Margaret to write the book, Scrim My Tail: As Told to Margaret Orr. Scrim may be short on legs, but he has a lot of tall tails to tell. All of her royalties are being donated to the Krewe of Barkus to support rescue animals. Now that Margaret is retired she has time to go to baseball games, pick up grandchildren from school and help with homework. She still sends out a daily forecast on social media. Some things never change.
Alison Pelegrin is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Louisiana Board of Regents, the Foundation for Louisiana, and the Academy of American Poets, who awarded her a Poets Laureate Fellowship to support the Lifelines Poetry Project, which supports her work offering poetry workshops in Louisiana Prisons. Alison’s two most recent poetry collections are Our Lady of Bewilderment (2022) and Waterlines (2016), both with LSU Press. Her work has appeared in The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, and The Best American Poetry 2025. Alison is Writer-in-Residence at Southeastern Louisiana University, and served as Louisiana Poet Laureate from 2023-2025.
Valentine Pierce is a spoken word artist, writer and amateur photographer. Recent publications include the New Orleans Poetry Journal and Rigorous Magazine. Recent performances include Nasty Women Poets group reading at the NOPF, group reading at the Tennessee Williams fest, featured reader for People of the Poem at the Jefferson Parish Library. Pierce was the Writer-in-Residence at a Studio in the Woods, 2006. Her book Up Decatur: Second Edition, was published in 2023 and her debut book, Geometry of the Heart, in 2007. Pierce was a host of WRBH’s Writer’s Forum and co-host of Rhythm and Muse open mic at Berkeley Museum. Upcoming publications include Counting Our Blessings, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita at 20, Mapleleaf Rag Anthology, and Hands of Heritage Anthology.
A native New Orleanian, Karisma Price is an assistant professor of English at Tulane University. A poet and screenwriter, she is the author of I'm Always So Serious (Sarabande Books, 2023) which was a New York Times Editors’ Choice Pick. Her work has appeared in publications including Poetry, Indiana Review, Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day Series, and elsewhere. She is a 2025 Whiting Award Winner in Poetry, a Cave Canem Fellow, a 2023 winner of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from the American Poetry Review, and was awarded the 2020 J. Howard and Barbara M. J. Wood Prize from the Poetry Foundation. She holds an MFA in poetry from New York University.
Howard Rambsy II, Distinguished Research Professor of Literature at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, teaches courses on Black literature and comic books. He is the author of Bad Men: Creative Touchstones of Black Writers and the forthcoming Writing Black Panther: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Representation Struggles.
Lee Reilly frequently writes about women and the intricacies of family, identity, and care. (On the other hand, as the long-time answer lady for Vegetarian Times, she also wrote a ton about tofu and whether cows explode when they’re not milked.) Her work has appeared in Fourth Genre, Smokelong Quarterly, Hippocampus, London Independent Story Prize, Dorothy Parker’s Ashes, and elsewhere, and she’s earned support from Barbara Deming Fund, Ragdale Foundation, Monson Arts, and other arts organizations. The author of Women Living Single and Teaching Maggie, she hosts Shannaghe, a residency for writers in Maine.
Frank Relle: I’m a photographer, and my exploration of the Louisiana landscape began as a child staring out the window of my mom’s 1984 station wagon, playing “I spy” and asking endless “why” questions as we crossed cypress swamps, river refineries, and bayou homes. Beyond those questions, my time climbing oak trees and wandering pine forests offered an early invitation into presence, an instinctual awareness beyond words, where noticing came before naming and knowing. I’ve always been drawn to times and places where the shadow still holds mystery. That way of seeing continues to guide my work. Through long exposure night photographs of Louisiana’s built and natural environments, I try to honor the beauty and fragility of the place I call home. I live and work in New Orleans, still following the moonlight to help me see.
Rinna Rem writes personal essays and short stories about the Khmer American experience. She is a comedian and improv performer, too. She works as a public librarian in New Orleans.
Brad Richard’s most recent book is Turned Earth (Louisiana State University Press, 2025). He is also the author of Habitations (Portals Press, 2000), Motion Studies (The Word Works, 2011), Butcher’s Sugar (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2012), Parasite Kingdom (The Word Works, 2019). A second edition of Motion Studies, with additional poems and a foreword by Skye Jackson, was published by The Word Works in March, 2025. His 2022 chapbook, In Place, was chosen for the Robin Becker Series from Seven Kitchens Press. He has taught creative writing at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, The Willow School (whose creative writing program he founded and directed), Louisiana State University, and Tulane University, and for the Kenyon Review summer workshops. Series editor of the Hilary Tham Capital Collection from The Word Works, he lives, writes, and gardens in New Orleans. More at bradrichard.org.
Kat Echevarría Richter is an MFA candidate in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Camden. Her work explores themes of matrescence, Puerto Rican identity, and American historiographies, often with a side of humor. Prior to returning to school, Kat served as Artistic Director for The Lady Hoofers Tap Ensemble, a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to the art of rhythm tap. She also holds an MA in Dance Anthropology and has taught dance and dance studies in both the US and the UK. Her research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed journals and edited anthologies and her creative writing can be found in Glamour, Glassworks, Apiary, and Skirt. Kat is currently working on a novel about eugenics and a memoir about the year she spent on scholarship at Oxford University, during which time she realized George Eliot is a woman. Kat lives in Philadelphia with her spouse, their child, and a neurotic but loveable rescue dog.
Matt Rinard was dropped on his head by his grandmother twice. After surviving that he went on to numerous art institutions that disagreed with his style and technique. Opening his own Gallery on Royal Street in 1998 he had been hard at work for many decades. Matt has had one man shows on New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Gronau, Las Vegas and New Orleans.
A.E. Rooks is the author of The Black Joke: The True Story of One Ship's Battle Against the Slave Trade, winner of the Maritime Foundation’s Mountbatten Award for Best Book in 2022. A Jeopardy! champion who’s additionally received two national awards for sex positive journalism, Rooks’ literary passions are united by what the past can teach us about the present, how history shapes our future, and above all, really interesting stories.
Baton Rouge native Donney Rose is a New Orleans-based performance poet, advocacy journalist, and teaching artist. He is the creator of THE AMERICAN AUDIT, a multimedia spoken word project that examines the Black American experience by infusing history, creative verse, and research into the performance text. His work, which spans two decades on stages and in classrooms, guides others in their creative journeys and brings nuanced and colorful perspectives through the medium of spoken word and other creative outlets. Donney a past Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow, a 2022 Maryland State Arts Council Independent Artist Award recipient in Literary Arts, and a member of the 2025–2026 Artist At Work (AAW) cohort, where he’s serving as a Community Health Worker fellow at Ashė Cultural Arts Center focusing on neighborhoods and built environment as social determinants of health.
Maurice Carlos Ruffin is the author of National Bestseller, The American Daughters, as well as The Ones Who Don’t Say They Love You, a One Book One New Orleans selection, which was longlisted for the Story Prize. His debut, We Cast a Shadow, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and the PEN America Open Book Prize. All three books were New York Times Editor’s Choice selections. Ruffin is the winner of the Iowa Review Award in fiction and the Louisiana Writer Award. Ruffin is an associate professor of Creative Writing at Louisiana State University.
C.T. Salazar is a Latinx poet and librarian from Mississippi. He's the author of Headless John the Baptist Hitchhiking (Acre Books 2022), and the 2025 SouthArts Literary Fellow recipient for Mississippi. His work has been supported by Press On South's Southern Movement Media Fund, and the Smithsonian's Rural Initiative Collaborative. His poems have appeared in Poem-a-Day, Poetry Northwest, West Branch, Denver Quarterly Review, Cincinnati Review, and elsewhere.
Mona Lisa Saloy, Ph.D. Louisiana Poet Laureate 2021-2023, is author, folklorist, Louisiana Folklife Commissioner, educator, and scholar of Creole culture in articles, documentaries, and poems about Black New Orleans before and after Katrina, is currently Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Professor of English, Dillard University. Books: Red Beans & Ricely Yours (has a banned poem “The N Word”), won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Second Line Home, on New Orleans Black Creole culture. Recent pubs: The Chicago Quarterly Review, Vol 33; “Introduction” to Black Fire!!! This Time II; Southern Voices: fifty contemporary poets, (Tom Mack & Andrew Geyer eds.) Literary Press, Lamar University, Fall 2024. LMNL Poetry Anthology, fall 2024. Black Creole Chronicles: Poems (UNO Press 2023), choice for ONE BOOK ONE NEW ORLEANS 2024, & Book of the Month, The Whitney Plantation Museum. Saloy was named Louisianian of the Year in Literature: 2024 in Louisiana Life Magazine. Mentioned in “Read your way through New Orleans,” by Maurice Carlos Ruffin, NYT Book Review, Oct. 2024. Currently, with former LA Poet Laureate John Warner Smith, Saloy is editing Hurricanes Katrina & Rita at 20, an anthology of Poetry with Art, BLACK BAYOU PRESS, 2025. Mona Lisa Saloy writes for those who don’t or can’t tell Black Creole cultural stories. www.monalisasaloy.com
Blake Sanz is the author of The Boundaries of Their Dwelling (U. Iowa Press, 2021), chosen by Brandon Taylor as the winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Award. His work has appeared in The Georgia Review, Ecotone, The Missouri Review, Joyland, American Short Fiction, and elsewhere. Former fiction editor of The Florida Review, he has received fellowships and scholarships from the Sozopol Fiction Seminars, Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Jentel Artist Residency, and other literary organizations.
Marguerite Sheffer’s debut short story collection, The Man in the Banana Trees, won the Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a Finalist for the PEN America Robert W. Bingham Prize. The collection was named a “Best Debut Book” by Debutiful and a “Most Exciting Debut Story Collection” by Electric Literature. Her stories appear in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epiphany, BOMB, The Cosmic Background, and LitHub, among other venues. She is a founding member of Third Lantern Lit, a New Orleans writing collective, a member of the Water Collaborative’s Brackish Artist Collective, and was named one of the 2025 New Orleans “40 Under 40” by Gambit. She teaches design thinking and speculative fiction as tools for social change at Tulane and is working on a novel.
Dr. Donna Poniatowski Sims, educator (K-12 and university level), and her husband, Chef Charlie Sims, were restaurateurs and owners of the music club, Donna’s Bar and Grill (which was noted for playing brass bands) and located at 800 N. Rampart for almost 18 years (1993-2010). Donna already knew many of the jazz musicians from her previous restaurant/music club, Janek’s, at 711 Bourbon which she co-owned from 1976-1980 with her first husband, John Poniatowski (deceased-1991). Donna has also been published as a photographer and has written numerous curricula for educational purposes. Charlie was the chef for Donna’s Bar and Grill and Head Chef for Amtrak’s “City of New Orleans”.
Stan L. Taylor: Charity Hospital Baby Class of 1951. Graduate Thomas Jefferson, San Antonio 1970. AirForce Veteran 1970-1974/Medic,MontgomeryAlabama-Wiesbaden Germany. Son,Brother,Uncle, Father,Parran. Retired Letter Carrier. Union Official. Second Liner/Foodie-Music Lover(except Disco). Allman Brothers/Miles Davis/James Carroll Booker/Prof.Longhair/Beyoncé/John&Alice Coltrane/Willie Nelson/Flaco Jimenez/Taylor Swift,Aficionado.Reader of printed material from sides of Cereal Boxer & Leon Forest-Divine Days
E. M. Tran is the author of the novel, Daughters of the New Year. Her stories, essays, and reviews can be found in Oxford American, Literary Hub, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. She was born, raised, and currently lives in New Orleans, Louisiana with her family.
Brian Turner has a memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country (with W.W. Norton in the U.S., and Penguin/Random House in the UK), and five collections of poetry, from Here, Bullet to The Dead Peasant’s Handbook (all with Alice James Books). He’s the editor of The Kiss and co-edited The Strangest of Theatres. He lives in Florida with his dog, Dene, the world’s sweetest golden retriever.
Shana Turner is a 2025 Lambda Literary Fellow whose work has appeared in Bayou Magazine, Bridge the Gulf, About Place Journal, on stages of the Boston Center for the Arts, and elsewhere. Shana participated in the juried 2021 Fiction Masterclass of the New Orleans Writers Workshop, and was a finalist for the 2020 Penelope Niven Creative Nonfiction Award. She toured nationally for seven years with the Reflect & Strengthen Street Theater Ensemble, and served as Fiction Editor for The Pitkin Review Journal of Goddard College. Front porches, racial tensions, stretch marks, kitchen tables, coming of age, queerness, lives interrupted by violence, natural human magic, and the intricacies of working-class culture are threads in Shana’s writing. She lives in New Orleans and is working to publish her debut novel, Claiming Caidin.
Nikki Ummel is a queer artist, editor, and educator in New Orleans. Nikki has been published or has work forthcoming with Gulf Coast, The Georgia Review, Black Lawrence Press, and others. Nikki is the executive director of LMNL, an arts organization focused on readings, workshops, and more. Her debut poetry collection, Swamp Elegies, was chosen by Sara Eliza Johnson for the 2025 winner of the New American Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from New American Press. You can find her on the web at www.nikkiummel.com
Tim Watson is a documentary editor, writer, and producer based in New Orleans. Much of his work has been at the intersection of music, social issues, and history in Louisiana and New Orleans, with key roles on more than 20 feature-length documentaries.
Melissa A. Weber is an artist-scholar and music historian whose areas of expertise include 20th century popular music, the music and culture of her native New Orleans, and archives. She has shared her research in presentations for the American Musicological Society, International Association for the Study of Popular Music, National Council for Black Studies, and Society of American Archivists among others; and in publications for NPR Music and Wax Poetics. When not serving in professional capacities as an archives curator with Tulane University Special Collections and adjunct faculty at Loyola University, she collects vinyl records of the music she loves. In her spare time and under the moniker of DJ Soul Sister, she has hosted her Soul Power show on WWOZ FM New Orleans community radio station for 30 years. As a DJ artist, she has performed on stage with artists ranging from Questlove to George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic.
Richard A. Webster is a senior reporter at Verite News and a member of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network. He is currently investigating how Gov. Jeff Landry’s policies have impacted the state’s criminal justice system. After Webster reported on death row inmate Jimmie Duncan, a Louisiana judge vacated Duncan’s sentence. Webster previously investigated allegations of abuse against the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, and claims of racial and economic inequities within Louisiana’s Road Home recovery program following Hurricane Katrina. As a result of his reporting, the state dropped $103 million in lawsuits against victims of Katrina. Webster previously was a member of The Times-Picayune’s investigative team, reporting on numerous special projects including “The Children of Central City,” an in-depth look at childhood trauma through the lens of a youth football team; and “A Fragile State,” a multi-part series on Louisiana’s mental health care system.
Nick Weldon is senior editor at the Historic New Orleans Collection, where he is editor and co-author of Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration (2025) and the award-winning graphic history Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana (2021). He has also been editor for several major museum exhibitions and has written about a wide range of topics for other publications.
Kalamu ya Salaam is a writer, editor, photographer, and retired educator. He has widely published in literary, music, and political journals. He is the author of: Walkin' Blues: a speculation and meditation on the life and legend of Robert Johnson, Precise Tenderness, Cosmic Deputy: poetry & context: 1968 2019, Be About Beauty, What Is Life?: Reclaiming the Black Blues Self and much more. He and Ayo Fayemi-Robinson founded Runagate Press, which produces a series of New Orleans writers. Runagate publishes in partnership with the University of New Orleans Press (UNO Press). Salaam edited New Orleans Griot: The Tom Dent Reader (2018), which was the 2020 One Book/One New Orleans selection. Recent Runagate publications include Louisiana Midrash by Marian D. Moore and I Feel To Believe by Jarvis DeBerry. Publications in 2021 are I Am New Orleans - 36 poets revisit Marcus Christian’s definitive poem and Cosmic Deputy, a 50 year retrospective of poetry by Kalamu ya Salaam. He is the founder of NOMMO Literary Society.