Mona Lisa Saloy, author, folklorist, educator, and scholar, is an award-winning author of contemporary Creole culture in poems about Black New Orleans before and after Katrina. As a folklorist, Saloy documents sidewalk songs, jump-rope rhymes, and clap-hand games to discuss the importance of play. As a poet, her first book, Red Beans & Ricely Yours, won the T.S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. She's written on the significance of the Black Beat poets, on the African American Toasting Tradition, on Black & Creole talk, and on conditions and keeping Creole after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Her work captures the day-to-day New Orleans speech, contemplates family dynamics, celebrates New Orleans, and all in a way everyday people can enjoy.

"This is a poetry of the spirit, of the ancestors."
--Jericho Brown, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Tradition

"Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy beautifully captures the culture and essence of Louisiana in her mesmerizing poetry."
--Gov. John Bel Edwards