María-Luisa Ornelas-June, born and raised in Laredo, Texas, earned a law degree but found greater passion outside of traditional legal practice. After a brief stint in law, she accompanied her spouse on international postings to the Netherlands, Singapore, and India. In Singapore, she discovered her love for teaching while instructing first-year law students in legal research and writing at the National University of Singapore. Now residing in Houston, Texas, Mari is a Tejana folklorist whose work celebrates Tejano culture by documenting life along on the banks of the Río Grande. In 2023, she was awarded the Texas Folklife Community Fellowship. In 2025, she was a Loghaven Fellow and was awarded the CMAS Voces Oral History Collaborative Fellowship from UT Austin. In 2026, she was awarded a a Hedgebrook residency to work on her book. Her works have appeared in Barrelhouse, Chamisa: A Journal of Visual, Literary and Performance Arts of the Southwest, NonProfit Quarterly, and in an anthology, ¡Somos Tejanas!