Carl A. Brasseaux, former director of the Center for Louisiana Studies and a Louisiana Writer of the Year, has spent a lifetime studying the peoples and cultures of the Louisiana coastal plain. He is author or coauthor of more than forty books including Asian-Cajun Fusion: Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou; Ain't There No More: Louisiana's Disappearing Coastal Plain; Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a People, 1803-1877; and Creoles of Color in the Bayou Country, all published by University Press of Mississippi.