Krewe

FQJ Correspondents & Staff

Ellis Anderson

Publisher/Writer

Ellis Anderson first came to the French Quarter in 1978 to pursue dreams of becoming a musician and writer. Eventually, she also became a silversmith and represented local artists as owner of Quarter Moon Gallery, with locations in the Quarter and Bay St. Louis, on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her book about the Bay's Katrina experience, "Under Surge, Under Siege," was published by University Press of Mississippi and won the Eudora Welty Book Prize in 2010. The French Quarter Journal joins The Shoofly Magazine, Bay St. Louis Living, as a sister digital publication of Ellis Anderson Media, LLC.

Photo by Gus Bennett for 100 Men Hall

Rheta Johnson

Managing Editor/Writer

Rheta Grimsley Johnson is a veteran reporter and former syndicated columnist for King Features Syndicate of New York. She is the author of eight books, including "Poor Man's Provence; Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana" and "Good Grief," the only authorized biography of "Peanuts" cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. She is the recipient of the Ernie Pyle Memorial Award and the National Headliner Award for commentary.

Tracy Keller

Business Manager

Tracy Keller came to New Orleans to pursue graduate studies at Tulane but stayed in New Orleans to pursue a life steeped in the arts and culture of New Orleans. Tracy has worked in theater, costume design, mask making and for many years, the film industry. Back in the day, she stage-managed theater productions with Nan Parati, managed and contributed to the FQ mask shop Little Shop of Fantasy, and received her MFA from UNO in documentary film. For the last two+ decades she has worked primarily as a production supervisor and line producer on New Orleans-made films, television and commercials and honed her skills in budgeting and finance, but she still loves to play dress-up. Tracy is a Nyx sister, a mother of two teen-age daughters and can often be found kayaking on Bayou St. John.

Andrew Cominelli

Skye Jackson

Poetry Editor/Writer

Skye Jackson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds an English degree from LSU and a JD from Mississippi College School of Law. She is currently an MFA candidate in poetry at the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop, where she serves as an Associate Poetry Editor of Bayou Magazine. She also served as co-editor of The Portable Boog Reader, an instant anthology based in New York City with a focus on New Orleans poets. Her work has appeared in the Delta Literary Journal and Thought Catalog. She was recently a featured author in Rigorous: a journal for people of color and has work forthcoming from the Xavier Review. Her prize-winning chapbook of poetry, A Faster Grave, was published in May 2019 by Antenna Press. She has taught at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and the University of New Orleans.

Margarita Bergen

Social Editor

Margarita Bergen was born in Santo Domingo, but she was born to be a New Orleanian. She’s a fan of the ballet, symphony, theater, opera and the visual arts – not to mention champagne. Margarita describes herself as a “party animal” and doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to the Quarter’s jazzy social scene. Margarita’s master’s was in education and her career in school administration, but her passion now is celebrating. In a city with so much going on you can’t possibly do it all, here’s the woman who gives it the old college try. She’s fabulous, dahling!

Writer

Andrew Cominelli is a writer and bike taxi operator in New Orleans. After college, he spent a few years writing and performing live comedy in New York before bolting south to focus on his fiction. He won the Faulkner Society's Faulkner-Wisdom Short Story competition (2017) and its top prize for novella (2019). He hopes that his pedicabber's-eye view can provide some new insights on work and life in the modern French Quarter.

Nan Parati

Writer

As the sign writer for the Jazz Fest, Nan Parati may be the most collected artist in the world, but nobody knows who she is. Other than that, she’s lived in the French Quarter and the Treme, was the sign writer at Whole Food Company (before Whole Foods Market,) worked for Jimmy Buffet for a while, has made a life’s work out of festival design all over the country, has won awards for her plays, has a film script revving up for production and just sold a restaurant she opened in Massachusetts after Katrina took out her house and sent her out of her mind. Now she’s back in her right mind and having a real good time.

Kirsten Reneau

Writer

Growing up among mountains, Kirsten Reneau has worked as a journalist wherever she could for as long as she's been able. Currently living in New Orleans, she spends most of her free time lounging on the bayou and walking her dog. Her creative work has been published in Hippocampus Magazine, and she is currently working on her Masters in Creative Writing at the University of New Orleans.

Frank Perez

Writer

Frank Perez serves as President of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana and has authored four books on New Orleans history and teaches part-time at Loyola University. He is also a licensed tour-guide. He and his partner live in the French Quarter.

Dar Wolnik

Writer

Dar Wolnik is a writer, blogger, activist and Girl Friday to her city of New Orleans. She has published essays and blogged for the last 20 years on reanimating public spaces, direct action democracy, the good food revolution, farmers markets, street life, and New Orleans - among other subjects. She works nationally as a trainer and writer for farmers market organizations.

Reda Wigle

Writer

Reda Wigle is a middle child named for a stigmatic saint. She likes dark humor and antique light fixtures. Reda lives between the salt and the grit in Key West, FL and New Orleans, La where she is working towards her MFA in Creative Nonfiction. She serves as associate editor of Bayou Magazine

Layth Sihan

Writer

Layth Sihan is a writer. He loves basketball, music, and food. He lives in New Orleans, LA.

Scott Naugle

Writer

Scott Naugle has published hundreds of book reviews and lifestyle articles over the past 15 years in The Sun Herald, The Mobile Register, Clarion-Ledger, Beach Blvd Magazine, and Mississippi Magazineamong others. He is a native of Davidsville, Pennsylvania and received an undergraduate degree from Penn State University in Insurance and Risk Management. He also earned graduate degrees in English from Millsaps College and Tulane University where he also taught as an adjunct professor. He is Chief Operating Officer of one of the largest publicly-traded insurance brokerages in the United States. Most importantly, he is the co-owner of Pass Christian Books and Cat Island Coffeehouse in Pass Christian, where he resides in a mid-nineteenth century home filled with books and an untended garden.

Grace Wilson

Writer

Grace grew up in Central Louisiana, but got to New Orleans as quickly as she could. After graduating from Loyola, she immediately bought a small shotgun near the Fairgrounds, a bold move for a 20-something who could barely keep a house plant alive. She has worked for New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation, the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Times Picayune. Today she continues to help businesses and institutions connect with audiences through public relations and social media. She now owns a piece of the French Quarter and is keeping alive her daughter Pearl, her small chihuahua Presley and her husband, Captain Christian. Grace will always love New Orleans, but has recently discovered the magic of Bay St. Louis, the Gulf Coast and beyond.

Michael Warner

Writer

Michael Warner is a native New Orleanian who writes about Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast. In his day job, he is general counsel for a biotech startup in the San Francisco area. But in his evenings, he researches and writes about coastal food, history and art. Warner recently won second place in the fiction category of the 2019 IndieReader Discovery Awards for his edited anthology of Lyle Saxon’s early works, A Lyle Saxon Reader (Cultured Oak Press, now available from local book stores). He is currently working on a biography of New Orleans artist Charles Whitfield Richards, and on a novel based in the French Quarter during Prohibition. You'll find more of Warner's work on his Cultured Oak website.

Kim Ranjbar

Writer/Photographer

Though she was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kim Ranjbar felt New Orleans calling her home as soon as she hit puberty. A graduate of granola U (a.k.a. Sonoma State University), Kim took her passion for the written word and dragged it over 2000 miles to flourish in the city she loves. After more than seventeen years as a transplant — surviving hurricanes, levee failures, oil spills, boil water advisories and hipster invasions — Kim hopes to eventually earn the status of local and be welcomed into the fold. Feel free to check out her blog at http://sucktheheads.com/ or contact her at kimranjbar@gmail.com.

Christopher Louis Romaguera

Writer

Christopher Louis Romaguera is a Cuban-American writer who was born in Hialeah, Florida. He has been published in The Daily Beast, Peauxdunque Review, Curbed National, Cuba Trade Magazine and other publications. He has a monthly column at The Ploughshares Blog. He is currently an MFA candidate in Fiction at the University of New Orleans. Contact Chris on Twitter.

Harry Philpott

Intern/Writer

Harry Philpott hails from the Piedmont region of North Carolina, where he grew up around books and barbecue. After college at the University of North Carolina, he tramped around the country for a few years, settling in Oregon for a little while before heading back to North Carolina. He now resides in New Orleans, LA where he is pursuing his MFA in Creative Non-Fiction at the University of New Orleans. He currently serves as an intern for the French Quarter Journal.

Kerry Maloney

Photographer

Kerry Maloney nabbed her first big newspaper internship out of college at The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, where she fell in love with all things Louisiana. She spent the next 15 years as a photojournalist and wedding photographer before starting a travel brand with her best frenemy, Jessica Fender. The duo travels the globe as the Traveler Broads and spreads the gospel of New Orleans through magazine pieces and colorful insider's guides. Maloney just celebrated her 10th anniversary as a French Quarter resident, where she lives with her pitbull child, Dorothy. You can follow their adventures at www.travelerbroads.com

Lisa Monti

Web Editor

Lisa Monti has years of experience (mostly good) working for newspapers and lifestyle magazines. She writes a local blog and enjoys photography, bike riding and going to lunch in New Orleans. A Bay St. Louis native, she was taught by nuns who set her on her career path with 1,000-word compositions as after-school punishment.