Su Prevost is a climate activist, teacher, writer, and South Louisiana water baby whose creative writing process incorporates nature’s turmoil, subtleties, and all the beauty of home into narratives that highlight her formative challenges for survival. She utilizes regional and emotional places to reflect upon and illuminate the touchstone issues of queerness, race, and gender. Prevost maintains that she just may be a humble mouthpiece for what her parents and ancestors couldn’t or wouldn’t access. While in residence Prevost worked on a novel in verse about the struggle of a girl’s early loss of her father and her subsequent scrappy piecemeal survival.  Enter the questions of God, sexual identity, and race. Enter the inheritance of unclaimed familial roots and truths – from San Ciparello, Sicily to Indian Village in St. Tammany Parish.

“Having days alone in the studio surrounded by the hardwood forest was beneficial to me and my work in that it helped me to viscerally feel the ancestral and spiritual roots of my characters. The elderberry, the chanterelle mushrooms, the oaks, the animal tracks, and the river were a quiet setting that naturally seeped into my work and added richness. As someone writing about my Louisiana roots, I could just step outside or look out my cabin window to invite the presence I needed to continue forming the narrative.” – Su Prevost