Melinda Palacio was 2 when she realized she wasn’t a suitcase.

She was to spend the next 15 or so years in South Central Los Angeles growing up witnessing kids getting shot on her front porch in a drive-by, her father in jail for attempted murder, and her mother dying at the hands of incompetent doctors at Kaiser who were treating her for allergies when she had a terminal kidney disease. Melinda used first reading then writing as a coping mechanism. Coping has turned into a career. Melinda has a successful career as a writer with books of poetry and a novel, Ocotillo Dreams. Oh, and if you ever wondered if you can actually twist your foot all the way around like a cartoon character, the answer is yes. “OMG” was created for this story.

Jeremy “Mojo” Phipps grew up with his own family tales of murder and jail. Jeremy’s brother, a successful NOLA rapper back in the heyday of Master P’s No Limit Records, is doing time for a crime everybody knows he didn’t commit. Jeremy came back from working in Los Angeles to be with his family as the case gets closer to being overturned. And Jeremy’s moving on from his longest running project, Saint Bell, and starting a new band.

Jordan Barnett fell in love with New Orleans from the defense table in a court room while his wife gutted flooded houses post Katrina. Volunteering in New Orleans as a public defender Jordan leveraged his huge salary as a bi-coastal public defender – if you call Philadelphia and New Orleans coastal – and bought an apartment. Now he’s about as local as you can get without going to high school here.

Happy birthday to our Tech Director Chris Kehoe!

Photos at Wayfare by Catherine King.