Sign up to win prizes and for exclusive updates about this year’s festival
April 24-26, 2026
Walker Lukens has been called ‘one of the best songwriters in Texas’. The Austin-based, Houston-bred singer, multi-instrumentalist has been called ‘wonderfully inventive’, and a ‘veteran balladeer with sudden indie rock ambitions’. Walker thinks it’s important that you realize his name is not Walter. In 2013, he released his first full length record, Devoted. It received […]
Laura Lee Smith is the author of the novels The Ice House and Heart of Palm. Her short fiction has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and New Stories From the South: The Year’s Best. A writer who’s been praised for her “intelligence, heart, and wit”, Smith has won awards and accolades from across […]
Irene Latham is the author of more than a dozen current and forthcoming books, including two novels for children: Leaving Gee’s Bend and Don’t Feed the Boy. Winner of the 2016 ILA Lee Bennett Hopkins Promising Poet Award, her poetry books for children include Dear Wandering Wildebeest, When the Sun Shines on Antarctica, Fresh Delicious […]
Catherine Lacey is the author of The Answers and Nobody Is Ever Missing. She has won a Whiting Award, was a finalist for the NYPL’s Young Lions Fiction Award, and was named one of Granta Magazine’s Best Young American Novelists. Her work has been translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch & German. With Forsyth Harmon, […]
Darius Jones is an extraordinarily gifted alto saxophonist and composer. He joined the New York music community in 2005, after living and studying in Richmond, VA. During his time in New York he has amazed and inspired musicians and audiences from widely divergent backgrounds with his meticulously honed musical gifts. Soul-power is at his foundation; […]
Jacob Jolliff is one of the country’s premier contemporary mandolinists. In 2012, he won the National Mandolin Championship in Winfield, KS. A fixture of the national bluegrass community, he has shared the stage with Darol Anger, Sam Bush, Ronnie McCoury, Jerry Douglas, and David Grisman, to name a few. In 2014, he joined the progressive […]
Patterson Hood is a musician and songwriter living in Portland, Oregon, a co-founder of the band Drive-By Truckers and the son of David Hood, the longtime bassist of the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section (who is also appearing at Word of South). For the past three years, Patterson’s life has been dominated by the Truckers’ latest […]
David Hood is a bassist from Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Hood started his career playing with the Mystics and as a backup musician at FAME Studios. He went on to co-found Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, where he produced songs for Willie Nelson, Cher and others, and was the bass player for the legendary “Swampers,” the house […]
Honeysuckle is a progressive folk act that blends older influences and traditional instrumentation with modern effects and inspiration. Comprised of Holly McGarry, Benjamin Burns, and Chris Bloniarz, this Boston-based band has performed at the Newport Folk Festival, Lollapalooza and CMJ, was chosen as a Converse Rubber Tracks artist, and has been nominated for Best Folk […]
Arlo Haskell is the author of The Jews of Key West: Smugglers, Cigar Makers, and Revolutionaries (1823-1969) and executive director of the Key West Literary Seminar. He is also the author of Joker, a poetry collection, and the editor of poetry volumes by Harry Mathews and Héctor Viel Temperley. Born on Big Coppitt Key in […]