Dr. Lerone A. Martin, Director of American Culture Studies and author of the award winning Preaching on Wax was the featured guest at "Eat and Read @ Melba’s,” a book signing event at the bustling, 24-hour New Orleans po-boy shop on Elysian Fields Avenue known as Melba’s. Dr. Martin joins a long list of noted authors to be featured at Melba’s including Colson Whitehead (winner of the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award), Chelsea Clinton, Sister Helen Prejean, Jesmyn Ward, Sarah Broom, as well as scholars such as Eddie Glaude Jr., and Jonathan L. Walton. The owners Scott and Jane Wolfe conceived of the event several years ago as a communal literacy awareness project in a neighborhood the Wolfe’s call a “book desert.” All diners receive a signed copy of the author’s book for free. The event has continued throughout the pandemic, with customers receiving their to-go orders and the free book while the author joins them via zoom.
