Freddi Williams Evans is an independent scholar and author of award-winning books for children as well as adults.

Michael Strecker is an award-winning author and standup comedian.

Sue Strachan has sat at the intersection of culture and human behavior with a drink at the ready. Cocktails were at the ready. Her first book was "The Cafe Brulot" (2021), followed by “The Obituary Cocktail” (2025), both part of LSU Press Iconic New Orleans Cocktail series.

Nick Spitzer is a Professor of Anthropology at Tulane. He has hosted & produced public radio’s American Routes, a weekly vernacular American music, interview and cultural program heard nationwide for 25 years. Nick founded the state of Louisiana Folklife Program (1978), where he helped create the Baton Rouge Blues Festival, Louisiana Folk Festival, Spanish Town Mardi Gras and granting programs for traditional artists and cultures statewide.

Nathaniel Rich, a 2025 Guggenheim Fellow, is the author of Cloudthief (Summer 2026) and three previous novels, all New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice selections: King Zeno (2018); Odds Against Tomorrow (2013); and The Mayor's Tongue (2008). He has also written two works of nonfiction on environmental themes: Second Nature (2021), which includes the story that serves as the basis for the film Dark Waters; and Losing Earth (2019), which is currently being adapted into a film directed by Tom McCarthy, shooting in New Orleans.

Tom Piazza is celebrated both as a novelist and as a writer on American music. His twelve books include the novels The Auburn Conference and City Of Refuge, the short-story collection Blues and Trouble, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and the essay collection Devil Sent The Rain. He was a principal writer for the innovative New Orleans-based HBO drama series TREME, and the winner of a Grammy Award for his album notes to Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey. He lives in New Orleans.

Imani Perry is the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute. Perry is the author of 8 books, including the New York Times Bestseller South to America: A Journey Below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation which received the 2022 National Book Award for Nonfiction, the inaugural Inside Literary Prize, and was named one of President Obama’s favorite books of 2022.

Shannon Atwater is a New Orleans based author-illustrator. She works in traditional mediums, mostly watercolors. When she's not working on books, you can find her playing dress up as a larger-than-life flower with Krewe des Fleurs. 

Melissa Fuster is Associate Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Her research examines the contextual and cultural factors influencing food practices using a multidisciplinary approach with a focus on Latin America and its diaspora communities.

Prof. Richard Campanella, geographer and associate dean for research with the Tulane School of Architecture and Built Environment and holder of the Jean and Saul A. Mintz Professorship in Architecture, is the author of sixteen books and over 300 articles on Louisiana geography, history, urbanism, and related topics.