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April 4-6, 2025
Leon C. Brunson, a private chef & owner of Leon’s at Lake Ella based in Tallahassee, Florida, immerses guests in a southern hospitality-style experience surrounded by food influenced by international techniques and flavors worldwide. His cooking style is inspired by techniques and flavors inspired by international cuisine—he’s found passion in the emotion food brings to […]
John Nogowski grew up in New Hampshire, worked in the newspaper business for 25 years in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Florida and Georgia. He taught as an adjunct professor at Florida State University, Tallahassee Community College and Bainbridge State College before settling in at Gadsden County High School in Havana, Florida for a dozen years, […]
Inspired by the experience of his Sicilian grandparents who settled in the sugarcane fields of Louisiana, Gary R. Mormino wrote his doctoral dissertation at UNC-Chapel Hill about a famous Italian immigrant community in St. Louis, Missouri, known as “The Hill.” As a history professor at University of South Florida in Tampa in 1977, he […]
David Sanchez is a graduate of the University of South Florida and the University of Miami. His debut novel, All Day Is a Long Time, has won the Mary Frances Hobson Prize, Florida Book Award Gold Medal, and an International Latino Book Award for Best Popular Fiction. He lives in Tampa, Florida where he works in residential […]
Dr. Tim Chapin is Dean of the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy and a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. As part of the leadership team in the Institute of Politics at FSU, Chapin has promoted a marketplace of ideas and a diversity of worldviews within FSU. Trained as […]
Annamarie Simoldoni is a journalist and researcher based in South Florida. She graduated from Florida State University with a degree in Editing, Writing, and Media. While a student, she joined the Society for Collegiate Journalists and worked as a staff writer for Strike magazine. She is currently working with the News Watch to research environmental policy […]
Ronald Gruner is the author of We The Presidents: How American Presidents Shaped the Last Century, which discusses a century of presidents from Warren G. Harding to Donald J. Trump, and how their presidencies have contributed to what America is today. A first-time author, Gruner wrote the non-partisan We The Presidents to help Americans better […]
Kim Bradley grew up in Monroeville, Alabama, and studied journalism at Auburn University. She has an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Orleans. Her short-story collection, Spillway, was published by Stephen F Austin State University Press in March 2022. Her short fiction has also appeared in Natural Bridge, Bayou, Southern Indiana Review, Real South Magazine, Needle: A […]
Noemí Figueroa Soulet was born in Puerto Rico but raised in New York City and currently resides in Kissimmee, Florida. She wrote, directed and produced the PBS documentary film “The Borinqueneers,” about the history of the only Hispanic-segregated unit in Army history. The film won the Military Channel Award at the GI Film Festival and […]
Gunhild Carling is a world-famous musician, singer, songwriter and entertainer, with millions of views on the Internet. She sings and plays more than ten instruments, including the trumpet, trombone, bagpipes, harp, harmonica, recorder and ukulele, and has appeared with big bands, symphonies, chamber orchestras and more. She began playing at the age of seven with the […]