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Biography
Author, folklorist, essayist, and poet Dr. Mona Lisa Saloy is a passionate literary voice representing the African-American and the New Orleans Creole cultural experience. A writer who has seen more than her fair share of hardship, Saloy boasts a substantial body of work to her credit. In addition to her books, her articles, essays, and poems have appeared in numerous magazines, journals, anthologies, and films, including The Southern Review, Louisiana English Journal, and African American Review.
Saloy’s also a popular lecturer and was keynote speaker at the Re-Building New Orleans Conference at Tulane University; writer-in-residence at the Arna Bontemps Museum in Alexandria, Louisiana; and guest writer at the University of Missouri in 2005. Since then, Saloy has been a featured writer at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival, Santa Barbara Community College, and the 2006 DeBose Festival
Mona Lisa Saloy holds a Ph.D. in English from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, as well as an MFA in Creative Writing from the same institution.
Industry Expertise (5)
Fine Art
Training and Development
Research
Education/Learning
Writing and Editing
Areas of Expertise (11)
New Orleans Creole Culture
Poetry
Literature
Higher Education
Creative Writing
Grant Writing
History
Publishing
Curriculum Design
Folklore
African American Culture
Accomplishments (1)
PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award in Poetry (professional)
2006-01-01
Awarded to promote works of excellence by writers of all cultural and racial backgrounds and to educate both the public and the media as to the nature of multicultural work.
Education (2)
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge: Ph.D., English
Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge: MFA., Creative Writing
Affiliations (5)
- American Anthropological Association
- Association of Writers & Writing Programs
- Louisiana Creole Research Association
- LA Folklore Society
- Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (Guest Scholar)
Media Appearances (2)
'Red Beans and Ricely Yours' : Free Rice and Beans Still a Monday Night Tradition in New Orleans
Al Jazeera America online
2014-10-11
“That’s a Haitian thing,” says Mona Lisa Saloy, a New Orleans native and an English professor at Dillard University, a historically black school in the city’s 7th Ward. The Haitian revolution in the late 1700s brought an influx of immigrants from Haiti to New Orleans. She says their traditions were familiar to the slaves already in Louisiana. “Even in West Africa, there’s a lot of beans and rice. And they cook it very much the way we do.”...
Hot books for New Orleans summer from Wilton Barnhardt, Mona Lisa Saloy and Frederick Starr
The Times Picayune online
2014-07-02
The New Orleans poet and Dillard University professor has been piling up awards for years, including the 2005 T.S. Eliot Award for her debut collection, "Red Beans and Ricely Yours." Her new collection offers a poetic response to the destruction and diaspora triggered by Hurricane Katrina -- and chronicles the city's long struggle to rebuild...
Event Appearances (1)
Etouffee Talk: From Swimmer to Modise to Scholar, the Journey of a Folklorist and Poet.
Fletcher Lecture Series Nicholls State University, LA.
2014-11-07
Articles (3)
On Not Being Able to Write A Post-Katrina Poem about New Orleans
The Journal of Pan African Studies
2010-01-01
It wasn't Katrina you see It was the levees One levee crumbled under Ponchartrain water surges One levee broke by barge, the one not supposed to park near ninth-ward streets One levee overflowed under Ponchartrain water pressure We paid for a 17-foot levee but...
A Night in St. Tammany Parish
Callaloo
2001-01-01
As a young girl, born and raised in New Orleans, glad to be among family and friends, very much a kid and politically ignorant, I will never forget the first time I saw the Confederate flag and understood that it represented hatred. It was a typical hot summer in New Orleans. ...
African American Oral Traditions in Louisiana
Folklife in Louisiana
1998-01-01
Since Africans were transported as slaves to America, Black Americans have nurtured and created a dynamic culture within a climate of intense racial, social, and economic exploitation and injustice. They developed kinship networks, religious beliefs, and families ...
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