Sign up to win prizes and for exclusive updates about this year’s festival
April 23-25, 2027
Chattanooga poet Laurie Perry Vaughen and the Atlanta jazz trio Three Way Mirror, performing as Billie Holiday on the Radio, present a unique show combining poetry and music. Atlanta saxophonist Jeff Crompton composes music for Billie Holiday’s namesake that “touches on blues, jazz, country, rockabilly, and more abstract areas.” The other members of the band are […]
The director of the creative writing program at Florida State University, Erin Belieu is the author of four poetry collections, whose work has also been published in numerous journals. Her most recent work, Slant Six, was named a top ten book of the year by the New York Times Book Review. She’s the cofounder of […]
Donishisa Ballard, from Chicago, Illinois, has been described as one powerful instrument of God. With large followings on Facebook, YouTube and all over the country, we’re so pleased to have her this year at Word of South. […]
The Bad Years are a Los Angeles band made up of Sami Akbari and Aaron Mort, “who are awesome and they know it.” They have released three albums, including The Beautiful Liar EP, which is “packed with cuts that are tortured but uplifting.” The Bad Years describe their music this way: “If you were the […]
Gustafer Yellowgold’s Show is a multi-media performance of live music, animated illustrations and storytelling. With its unique crossover appeal, the show has been the wild-card opening act for Wilco and The Polyphonic Spree. Gustafer has appeared off-Broadway in his own productions of Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Sensation and Gustafer Yellowgold’s Infinity Sock. In addition to touring […]
James Wood is the author of four books of criticism—The Broken Estate, The Irresponsible Self, How Fiction Works and The Fun Stuff—as well as The Book Against God, a novel. He is a staff writer at The New Yorker and teaches at Harvard. […]
Lily White received her MFA in nonfiction from Bennington in 2013. She has performed and toured with the Latin jazz founding father Mario Bauza and the master organist Jimmy McGriff. She was awarded a Jazz Composition Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and has released three CDs: Somewhere Between Truth and Fiction, No […]
Raised in Pensacola, Florida, a town crushed between the church and heroin, Jim’s songs reach deep into the underbelly of the South. One time Pentacostal, fashion model, New York taxi driver, drifter, prosurfer, photographer, film-maker, his music is the conduit for all the stories he collected along the way. His previous albums ‘Wrong-Eyed Jesus’ [1997], […]
The Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra is one of the finest regional orchestras in the country. Under the baton of Maestro Darko Butorac, the TSO offers a diverse and engaging season of performances that include orchestral masterworks, holiday pops, kids & family programming, and more. The TSO believes that music has the power to transform lives and […]
Read More… from Tallahassee Symphony Orchestra, featuring J.K. Simmons
Challenge and change are the themes underlying the 40-year career of the revered female African-American a cappella ensemble, SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK. The ever-growing list of SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK’s musical and activist achievements since its creation is beyond stunning. The ladies have performed in Nairobi and Beijing at the U.N. World Conference […]