Born in Geismar, LA, Malaika Favorite has had an accomplished career as an artist and writer. Her visual works can be found in numerous collections and her writings have won her the 2005 Louisiana Literature Prize for Poetry and the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Award for her most recent collection of poetry: Ascension. Malaika was the first African-American student to integrate the Ascension parish highschool and carries on the legacy of her father, Amos Favorite, whose leadership was instrumental in the early years of LEAN.