G. Mark LaFrancis has been a writer and photographer for more than thirty years. He has won many writing awards as a reporter, photographer, and columnist. His credentials include editor, photographer and writer at daily and weekly newspapers; instructor of film and photography at secondary and post-secondary schools, private photographic consultant, graphic designer, and photo contest judge for various organizations. He is past president of the Mississippi Writers Guild. He has been involved with film making, including “The Parchman Ordeal: The Untold Story,” which won the prestigious Most Transformative Film at the 2017 Crossroads Film Festival. Mark was named the 2018 Mississippi Scholar by the Mississippi Humanities Council, and in 2009, Mark received the first Thad Cochran Humanities Achievement Award for his documentaries on Richard Wright and Eudora Welty. He is a retiree of the Armed Forces, which he served for twenty-three years in the Air Force, Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve and earned two Air Force Commendation Medals. He has interviewed soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan and their loved ones, letting them inspire a book collection published under the titles: In Their Boots: Poems Inspired by Soldiers and Their Loved Ones. Mark also has published five books for young readers and has given his speaking program “Storytelling from My Front Porch,” to many elementary schools. Mark has taught groundbreaking Introduction to Film and Photography at Adams County Christian School, Natchez High School and the Fallin Career and Technology Center in Natchez, as an artist in residence. He is the self-published author of eight books, five for young readers, and has mentored young writers for the past twenty years Mark also is the founder and president of Home With Heroes Foundation Inc., a private non-profit organization dedicated to helping veterans and their families, especially those suffering from combat and near combat experiences. Mark lives in Natchez with his wife Eileen. They have two grown children Mark and Mary.