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April 24-26, 2026
Colleen Nixon is Tallahassee, Florida’s home grown wild flower who was told she was singing before she was speaking. With a deep love of music and years of voice lessons, Colleen moved to Nashville, TN and received her Bachelor’s Degree from Belmont University in Commercial Voice with a Music Business emphasis. It was there Colleen’s […]
Carol’s warm and loving story of her animal friends’ relationships reflects her life-long love of animals, her years of living on a farm, and her days at St. Teresa Beach. She raised her family in the North Florida country with animal friends, and others, presented in her stories. Each of the five books in her […]
Tift Merritt seemingly came out of the woodwork in 2002 with her acclaimed debut album, Bramble Rose. Despite her sudden success, Tift Merritt has been working in the music industry for most of her life. During her childhood, Merritt’s family moved from Texas to North Carolina and with the help of her father she began […]
Tia Mitchell is a local government reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. Last fall, she was assigned to cover the campaign of and elections issues raised by Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. Prior to joining the AJC, Tia served as Statehouse Bureau Chief for The Florida Times-Union newspaper and covered politics and government with a […]
Joseph McSpadden has been a roots music enthusiast since the late 60s. His love for folk, blues, and country rock led him to start writing for www.theflamestillburns.com. In 2014 he was selected by No Depression for the launch of the ND Live feature, and for two years reported on live music from the famed Birchmere […]
The country American group, Maybe April, formed during the summer of 2012 at a music industry camp in Nashville, Tennessee. The two members, Katy Dubois, from Arkansas, and Alaina Stacey, from Illinois, met at the camp and realized how well they complemented each other musically. The pair began creating country folk music, blending their voices […]
Dr. Luis Martínez-Fernández is an historian, university professor, author and public speaker, whose fields of expertise include Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino / Hispanic culture and society. Currently, he teaches at the University of Central Florida and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Council for History Education. His books include: Revolutionary […]
Tara Lynn Masih is a National Jewish Book Award Finalist and winner of a Julia Ward Howe Award, a 2018 Florida Book Award, a Benjamin Franklin Award, and multiple Foreword Book of the Year Awards. She is the author of the acclaimed novel My Real Name Is Hanna and editor of The Rose Metal Press […]
Born and raised in New Jersey, Bob Malone was classically trained on the piano, and later earned his degree in jazz. Since then he has refined his sound to be a unique combination of rock, blues, and New Orleans R&B. Bob has had a very successful solo career, playing the keyboard around the world for […]
Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. A well-accomplished poet, his first book, The Wild Hundreds, received the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. He has also released his own rap album, Grown. He starred in the award-winning documentary, Louder Than a Bomb, about Chicago high schoolers preparing for the world’s largest youth slam. He […]