TWFest Gala Honorees 2025
The mission of the Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival is to nurture, support, and showcase writers, actors, musicians, and other artists. Our annual March festivals feature debut writers alongside acclaimed authors sharing their love of writing in craft sessions and creative conversations. Performing artists grace our stages in theatrical productions and musical performances. TWFest is a joyful celebration of the literary arts that honors the creative genius of the playwright, Tennessee Williams, who considered New Orleans his spiritual home.
Now in our 40th year, The Tennessee Williams & New Orleans Literary Festival is grateful to the writers, performing artists, and community arts advocates who have inspired us, worked alongside us, and supported our mission. With that in mind, we have established the Tennessee Williams Distinguished Arts Awards to recognize and honor those who have had a significant impact on the literary arts.
For Excellence in Literary Arts, the Festival honors writers who are as honest and unflinching in their examination of the human condition as our patron playwright, Tennessee Williams. Our honoree this year is Mona Lisa Saloy.
Mona Lisa Saloy is an award-winning author, folklorist, educator, and scholar whose poetry documents Creole culture in sidewalk songs, jump-rope rhymes, and clap-hand games to explore the importance of play. Her first book, Red Beans & Ricely Yours, won the T. S. Eliot Prize and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award. Her collection Second Line Home captures New Orleans speech and family dynamics and celebrates the unique culture the world loves. Her third volume, Black Creole Chronicles, was chosen as the 2024 city-wide read by One Book One New Orleans. Saloy has lectured on Black Creole culture at Poets House-NYC, the Smithsonian, Purdue University, the University of Washington, and Woodland Patterns Book Center. Her poem “New Orleans, a Neighborhood Nation” is included in the anthology I Am New Orleans, edited by Kalamu ya Salaam. Her work is also in the Chicago Quarterly Review, Vol. 33, Anthology of Black American Literature, and she is an editorial reviewer for Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism. Currently the Conrad N. Hilton Endowed Professor of English at Dillard University, Dr. Saloy is a noted speaker and storyteller who consults with the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the Louisiana Folklore Society. She was named Louisiana State Poet Laureate for 2021 - 23.
For Excellence in Performing Arts, the Festival honors artists who embody the creative spirit of Tennessee Williams through theatre, music, or other performing arts. Our honoree this year is playwright John Patrick Shanley.
John Patrick Shanley is a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award–winning American playwright, an Oscar winning screenwriter, and a theatre and film director. He is the author, and has often been the director, of nearly 30 plays, many of them performed worldwide. Shanley was awarded the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Screenplay written directly for the screen for Moonstruck (1987). He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a Drama Desk Award, the Tony Award for Best Play, and an Obie Award for his play, Doubt: A Parable (2005). He later wrote and directed the film version (2008) and the libretto for a 2012 opera based on the play. Other plays include Danny and the Deep Blue Sea (1983), Savage in Limbo (1984), Beggars in the House of Plenty (1991), and Sailor's Song (2004). He has also directed several award-winning films, including Alive (1993) and Congo (1995). He continues to write for the stage and screen.
For Excellence in Arts Advocacy, the Festival honors groups or individuals who champion the literary arts through volunteerism, patronage, career service, and other supportive acts. Our honorees this year include an organization as well as an individual.
We’re presenting this award to the John Burton Harter Foundation.
The John Burton Harter Foundation is a nonprofit organization that promotes John Burton Harter’s art and the interests he cared about. JBHF provides resources to nonprofit organizations that advance the arts by featuring Harter’s work. John Burton Harter (1940-2002) established the foundation through a charitable trust to ensure the visibility of his art and fulfill his creative vision. In keeping with his wishes, JBHF has supported exhibitions, catalogues, publications, and initiatives with funding or gifts of original Harter works since 2002. Recipients include non-profit institutions and organizations, from major art museums to local groups. In addition, JBHF preserves Harter’s art, facilitates loans, and places works in important museums to expand Harter’s legacy and creative impact.
The Foundation is managed by a Board of Advisors, which include Brian Sands, Jack Sullivan, and Alan Williams.
Our second honoree for Excellence in Arts Advocacy is Poppy Tooker.
Poppy Tooker, food personality, culinary activist, and author, has spent her life immersed in New Orleans’ delicious food scene. For over a decade, Poppy has produced and hosted her award-winning, NPR-affiliated radio show, Louisiana Eats! She also provides restaurant commentary on the weekly PBS show, Steppin’ Out seen on WYES-TV. She has brought her flair to national television alongside celebrities that include Bobby Flay, Andrew Zimmern, Jeff Corwin, Mo Rocca, and Wynton Marsalis.
Poppy is the author of many popular culinary books, including Tujague’s and Pascal’s Manale restaurant cookbooks. Drag Queen Brunch delves into the lives of New Orleans’ beloved queens and includes over 100 recipes from New Orleans’ most famous brunch restaurants. Her Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook received the Eula Mae Dore Tabasco Award for its historical and cultural content. Following Hurricane Katrina, Poppy was recognized by the Times Picayune as a “Hero of the Storm,” and in 2012, Southern Living magazine named Poppy a “Hero of the New South” for her work in foodways. The International Association of Cooking Professionals recognized Poppy’s efforts in April 2008, with their first ever Community Service Award.
