Mark F. Fernandez is the Patricia Carlin O'Keefe Distinguished Professor of History at Loyola University New Orleans. He has written extensively about the history of early American law. His second book From Chaos to Continuity: The Evolution of Louisiana's Judicial System, 1712-1862, (Louisiana State University Press, 2001, 2014) won the Louisiana Literary Award. In 2012 he received the Woody Guthrie Fellowship from BMI music publishers to begin research on his current book project The Intentional Troubadour: Woody Guthrie's Travels Through the Twentieth Century. His most recent essay "The Only Way I Could Cry: Woody Guthrie and the Writing of 'Balladsongs,'" appeared in the Woody Guthrie Annual in January 2018. Fernandez is also a singer songwriter and performs regularly in New Orleans.