Sign up to win prizes and for exclusive updates about this year’s festival

April 24-26, 2026

Word of South

John Kurzweg

John Kurzweg is a multi-platinum record producer and multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter who first became known for his work with successful post-grunge band Creed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Three of Creed’s records, which Kurzweg produced & mixed, were certified multi-platinum and helped Creed achieve worldwide popularity. John has also produced other popular rock artists such as […]

Read More…

Craig Pittman

Craig Pittman is a native Floridian, a best-selling author, a podcaster and an award-winning environmental journalist. Born in Pensacola, he graduated from Troy State University in Alabama, where his muckraking work for the student paper prompted an agitated dean to label him “the most destructive force on campus.” In 40 years as a newspaper reporter, […]

Read More…

Jeff VanderMeer

Jeff VanderMeer grew up in the Fiji Islands and currently lives in Tallahassee, Florida and Portland, Oregon. His critically acclaimed New York Times-bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy has been published in 20 countries, and the Paramount Pictures film of the first book in the trilogy, Annihilation, starring Natalie Portman, was released in 2018. Jeff’s subsequent fiction, […]

Read More…

Tom Piazza

Tom Piazza is celebrated both as a novelist and as a writer on American music. His twelve books include the novels A Free State and City Of Refuge, the short-story collection Blues and Trouble, the post-Katrina manifesto Why New Orleans Matters, and Devil Sent The Rain: Music and Writing in Desperate America, a collection of […]

Read More…

The Eyrie Artists

The Eyrie is Tallahassee State College’s award-winning student art and literary magazine, which publishes original poetry, prose, art, and photography. The magazine also provides students enrolled in Literary Magazine Production at TSC with the experience of magazine production, from the evaluation of materials to blue-line copy. The Eyrie (the nest of a bird of prey) […]

Read More…

The Currys

Brought together by family ties and a shared appreciation for folk, rock, and roots music, The Currys are an Americana trio featuring brothers Jimmy and Tommy and cousin Galen Curry. Like many family groups, their songs are anchored by the sort of elastic, entwined harmonies that only seem to exist among kin. On their second […]

Read More…