Sign up to win prizes and for exclusive updates about this year’s festival
April 8-10, 2022
Marshall Ruffin is a guitarist, singer and songwriter from Atlanta whose musical style mixes blues and rock. Ruffin also plays gospel in church on Sundays. He has recorded two EPs and a new album that will be on sale during his performance at Word of South. Ruffin has performed and recorded as the guitarist and […]
John Shelton Reed is a writer and lecturer who lives in Chatham county, North Carolina. He has written or edited twenty books, including 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About the South and Holy Smoke: The Big Book of North Carolina Barbecue, both written with his wife, Dale Volberg Reed. He belongs to the Fellowship of […]
Emily is a St. Joseph’s Bay native who’s lived other places, but always managed to find her way back home. A lover of boats, raw oysters, and quiet mornings watching the sun brighten the day are some of the simplicities she loves about Old Florida life. Working with Melissa and Christina to create Saints of Old […]
Padgett Powell is the author of six novels, including Edisto, which was nominated for the National Book Award, and two collections of stories. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s, and the Paris Review, as well as in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Sports Writing. He has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Fellowship in […]
Sarah Potenza writes and sings roots rock n’ roll music. Rolling Stone describes Potenza as “Janis Joplin-Aretha Franklin hybrid with a mic … but a Lucinda Williams-Bonnie Raitt hybrid with a pen.” She was introduced to many as a contestant on season 8 of The Voice. Her critically praised debut album, Monster, was released in 2016. […]
Christine Poreba’s book Rough Knowledge won the 2014 Philip Levine Prize. Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Recent honors include The Florida Review’s 2015 Editors’ Prize, a Florida Individual Artist’s Grant, and a nomination for a 2017 Pushcart Prize. Originally from New York City, she currently lives in Tallahassee with her husband and their young son. […]
Eric Paslay delivers a powerful punch as a renowned, Platinum-selling, hit songwriter and dynamic performer. Paslay has celebrated five No. 1 hits including “Even If It Breaks Your Heart” (Eli Young Band), “Barefoot Blue Jean Night” (Jake Owen), “Angel Eyes” (Love & Theft), “Rewind” (Rascal Flatts) and “Friday Night,” the smash lead single from his […]
Joan Osborne, a native Kentuckian, burst onto the music scene in the late 1990’s with her hit single “One of Us,” featuring the now-iconic line, “What if God is One of Us?” Since then she’s released seven albums, including her most recent, “Love and Hate.” She’ll perform a special set of Dylan songs at Word […]
Nnedi Okorafor is a novelist of African-based science fiction, fantasy and magical realism for both children and adults. Born in the United States to Nigerian immigrant parents, Nnedi is known for weaving African culture into creative evocative settings and memorable characters. In a profile of Okorafor’s work titled, “Weapons of Mass Creation”, the New York Times called […]
Lydia Netzer’s debut novel Shine Shine Shine was a New York Times Notable Book for 2012, an Amazon Spotlight Book of the Month, a Target Book Club Pick, and was shortlisted for the LA Times Book Prize in Fiction. Her most recent book, How to Tell Toledo From the Night Sky, is about fate and determinism, science and faith, and […]