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April 26-28, 2024

Word of South

Dawnie Walton

Dawnie Walton is a writer, editor, and author of the acclaimed 2021 debut novel The Final Revival of Opal & Nev, a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and named one of the best books of 2021 by The Washington Post, NPR, Esquire, and former U.S. President […]

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David Detweiler

A superior post bop soloist, tenor saxophonist, composer, and educator David Detweiler is influenced a bit by early John Coltrane but has a sound and style of his own within the mainstream of modern jazz. He has earned his BM from William Paterson University, MM from Florida State University (2010), and DMA from the Eastman […]

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Cynthia Barnett

Cynthia Barnett is an award-winning environmental journalist who has reported on water and climate change around the world. Her new book, The Sound of the Sea: Seashells and the Fate of the Oceans (W. W. Norton, 2021), is a natural and cultural history of seashells and the animals that make them—revealing what they have to […]

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Buffalo Nichols

Since his earliest infatuations with guitar, Carl “Buffalo” Nichols has asked himself the same question: How can I bring the blues of the past into the future? After cutting his teeth between a Baptist church and bars in Milwaukee, it was a globetrotting trip through West Africa and Europe during a creative down period that […]

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Avis Berry

Considered a modern renaissance woman, this three-time Florida State alum is a talented singer and actress, teacher in Leon County Schools, and librarian at FSU’s College of Music library. Music has taken her around the globe allowing her to record and share the stage with such greats as Dave Brubeck, Robert Shaw, the Berlin Radio […]

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Abe Streep

Abe Streep is the author of Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana. He has written for publications including The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, WIRED, and Outside, where he is a contributing editor. His writing has been anthologized in The Best American Sports […]

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Katy Kirby

Kirby grew up as an evangelical Christian in Spicewood, Texas, where she was homeschooled and listened primarily to worship music. She attended college at Belmont University, where she majored in English. Kirby began releasing music in 2018, with the EP Juniper. In late 2020, she announced plans to release her debut album and, along with the announcement, released the single “Traffic!”. The […]

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