2018

Aliki Barnstone is poet laureate of Missouri. Her books include poetry, translation, literary criticism, and anthologies. Her visual art has appeared in journals and on book covers and interiors.

Her first book of poems, The Real Tin Flower, introduced by Anne Sexton, was published when she was 12 years old. Her mission as poet laureate is to celebrate and promote diversity in Missouri and, since she was child poet herself, to bring poetry to kids, K-12.

A captivating songwriter and musician, Demetrius S. Davis, Jr. better known as Meachy Davis is a passionate, humble, and soulful performer who takes his audience on a journey through his musical world where freedom and joy balance sorrow and injustice. His lyrics and musical cords reflects his happiness and pain through his music. Meachy obtained his BA in Instrumental Performance with a minor in Music Business Management from Columbia College Chicago in May of 2012. He was able to learn and master technical skills, compose and arrange music for instruments and voices in diverse styles; and use analytical tools of music to create expressive coherent performances in a range of styles. Upon graduation Demetrius signed his first contract to perform professionally with multiple music artists. Since then he’s been traveling the world sharing his gift and motivating young musicians with his experience in the music business! Demetrius came from a family full of musicians, so it was only right for him to start at a young age. He has performed in many productions in the Saint Louis area, out of the country and also around the United States, such as MTV awards, Grammys, BET Awards, the list goes on. He serves as the Music Director for Bridge Artist Management Music (Local music record label founded in 2014) and also the Human Resource Manager and Developer. His love for music has taken him and put him in positions he never seen coming.

Outside of music, Meachy has ventured back into school to study Human Resource Management and Cyber security. He will have his second BA and first Masters in December of 2018. He also is a substitute teacher for the Hazelwood School District and using his knowledge to give back to the younger generation.

The Kenny DeShields Experience brings the heart of life, love, and music to the stage with a collection of original songs, penned by the singer/songwriter. With a style that dabbles along the lines of John Legend and John Mayer, Kenny allows listeners to take a look into the heart of a man with an undying zeal and passion.

Kenny is currently showcasing new tunes from the highly anticipated album “The Real Love Project,” slated for a Fall 2017 release including the lead single, “That’s When You Love,” available on all digital outlets.

Kenny is no stranger to taking the “road less traveled.” The Real Love Project is a breath of fresh air to a familiar but overlooked topic. “Love’s not just a four letter word. It’s a day by day, moment by moment, conscious decision. It’s a culture, a way of life.” says Kenny.

The album features production and writing credits from some of the who’s who in the St. Louis music scene, including Grammy Award winning producer/artist – J.R., fellow singer-songwriter, Theresa Payne, and his wife and media personality/fashion stylist/blogger, Christia DeShields.

Kenny was selected as one of the fan favorites in the 2017 #TinyDeskSTL contest hosted by St. Louis Public Radio after submitting an entry in the NPR Tiny Desk Contest. He is also a 2014 and 2012 nominee in the RFT Music Showcase for Best R&B Artist and the 2011 Winner for Best Gospel Artist in the RFT Best of St. Louis category.

Kenny has had the privilege of sharing the stage with music greats such as Grammy nominated and BET J Virtual Award Winner – Eric Roberson, Jeanne Jolly, KJ52, Leon Timbo, Anthony David, Mali Music, Meaghan Williams McNeal, Daniel Eric Groves, and Sunday’s Best Finalists – Jessica Reedy and Durward Davis.

Journalist, author, and editor Daniel Durchholz's books include Rock 'n' Roll Myths: The True Stories Behind the Most Infamous Legends, Neil Young: Long May You Run - The Illustrated History, and MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide. He is a former editor at Replay and Request magazines, STLtoday.com, and the Riverfront Times. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to books including Dylan: Disc by Disc, The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen from A to E to Z and various MusicHound Essential Album Guides; newspapers including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle and the St. Louis Jewish Light; magazines including Rolling Stone, Billboard, Stereophile, Guitar One, Guitar, St. Louis, and St. Louis Cardinals Gameday; and numerous other publications and websites. On the airwaves, he has been heard delivering music news and reviews on radio stations KMOX and KTRS. He has taught a course in the history of rock 'n' roll at Webster University and courses in English at St. Louis Community College - Meramec and East Central College. He lives in Wildwood, MO, with his wife and four children.

At seventeen, Cole Gibsen found herself homeless with only a beat-up Volkswagen Jetta and a bag of Goodwill clothing to her name. The only things that got her through the nights she spent parked in truck stops and cornfields were the stacks of books she checked out from the library along with her trusty flashlight. It was because of the escape these books gave her that Cole vowed to become a writer so she could provide the same escape to teens who needed to escape the reality of their lives.

Cole Gibsen has been profiled in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and on St. Louis's KSDK morning news, and was featured in The Telegraph for her debut novel, Katana. She graduated from Southwestern Illinois College with an associate's degree in liberal arts, and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators and the St. Louis Writers Guild. Gibsen lives with her husband and daughter outside St. Louis in Collinsville, Illinois.

Antony John was born in England and raised on a balanced diet of fish and chips, obscure British comedies, and ABBA's Greatest Hits. In a fit of teenage rebellion, he decided to pursue a career in classical music, culminating in a BA from Oxford University and a PhD from Duke University. Along the way, he worked as an ice cream seller on a freezing English beach, a tour guide in the Netherlands, a chauffeur in Switzerland, a barista in Seattle, and a university professor. He lives in St. Louis with his family.

Family is at the core of who I am which is why families are at the center of most of my books whether it is families torn apart by injury (Worth) or absence (The Year of the Sawdust Man) or drawn together by tragedy (Water Steps and The Keening) or seeking each other (Walking Home to Rosie Lee).

When I'm not joining my family for a board game, a jaunt to the park, or a trip to the zoo, I'm usually writing or reading, but I'm also an associate professor of English at Greenville College in the academic year and a visiting associate professor in the Hollins University Summer Graduate Program in Children's and Young Adult Literature.

Sheree K. Nielsen is an Author/Photographer, and recipient of the 2015 Da Vinci Eye Award for Folly Beach Dances, a 'healing’ coffee table book of lyrical photography and poetry inspired by the rhythm of the sea and her lymphoma journey.

An award-winning author, poet and photographer, publications include Breaking Sad, AAA Southern Traveler, AAA Midwest Traveler, Southern Writers Magazine, Carolina Go, Missouri Life, South and North Brunswick Magazine, Whispering Angel Books, and countless anthologies, newspapers, and websites across the nation and Caribbean.

Her picture book, Midnight, the One-Eyed Cat, coauthored with writer friend, Pat Wahler, is slated for publication September 2018 (Amphorae). It’s about overcoming handicaps and building confidence, and learning to be the best -- just as you are.

When not writing, she’s usually discovering new beaches, or coffeehouses with her two goofy dogs and husband. Four content felines round out her family.

Wiley Price has worked as a photojournalist for Missouri newspapers for more than 20 years at The St. Louis American and 10 years at Suburban Journals of St. Louis. He studied music at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, 1975-1976; and music and photojournalism at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, 1976-1980. Price got his professional start in photography as a freelancer for the Associated Press in 1982 in St. Louis. As a freelancer, he made photos for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The St. Louis American, The Kansas City Star, Detroit Free Press, The Washington Post and Ebony magazine. His mentors were Fred Waters and James Finley, both Missouri Photojournalism Hall of Fame inductees. Price has received more than 80 awards for outstanding photojournalism, including dozens of first-place awards from the Missouri Press Association, Illinois Press Association, National Newspaper Association, Suburban Newspapers of America and the National Newspaper Publishers’ Association. In 2009, he was named one of the NAACP’s “100 Most Inspiring St. Louisans.” In 2011, he was honored for his iconic photographs documenting St. Louis’ Forest Park during the previous 25 years. In 2000, he received the Missouri Governor’s Humanities Award for his book of photography, Lift Every Voice and Sing, a historical essay that chronicles the lives of 100 St. Louis African-Americans in the 20th century.

Also in 2000, he received the Missouri Interscholastic Press Association’s Contributing Medium Award, only the second time the award had been given to a photojournalist. While Price is known for his ability to capture local, everyday life in memorable ways, he has photographed dozens of recognizable persons: Oprah Winfrey, Bill Cosby, Janet Jackson, Colin Powell, Joan Rivers, Gordon Parks, and every U.S. President since Jimmy Carter. He’s covered state high school and NCAA sporting events for 30 years, as well as the Super Bowl and two World Series. He is a consummate professional who continuously gives back to the St. Louis community. Whether it’s lecturing to high school or grade school students or leading student tours of the newspaper office, Wiley Price always volunteers.

Curtis Sittenfeld is the bestselling author of five novels: Prep, The Man of My Dreams, American Wife, Sisterland, and Eligible. Her first story collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It, will be published in 2018. Her books have been selected by The New York Times, Time, Entertainment Weekly, and People for their “Ten Best Books of the Year” lists, optioned for television and film, and translated into twenty-five languages. Her short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and Esquire, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Time, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, Slate, and on “This American Life.” A graduate of Stanford University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Curtis has interviewed Michelle Obama for Time; appeared as a guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” CBS’s “Early Show,” and PBS’s Newshour; and twice been a strangely easy “Jeopardy!” answer.

Buddy Wakefield is a three-time world champion spoken word artist featured on the BBC, HBO’s Def Poetry Jam, ABC Radio National and signed to Ani DiFranco’s Righteous Babe Records. In 2004 he won the Individual World Poetry Slam Finals thanks to the support of anthropologist and producer Norman Lear then went on to share the stage with nearly every notable performance poet in the world in over 1500 venues internationally from The Great Lawn of Central Park, Zimbabwe’s Shoko Festival and Scotland’s Oran Mor to San Quentin State Penitentiary, House of Blues New Orleans and The Basement in Sydney, Australia.

In the spring of 2001 Buddy left his position as the executive assistant at a biomedical firm in Gig Harbor, WA, sold or gave away everything he owned, moved to the small town of Honda Civic and set out to live for a living, touring North American poetry venues through 2003. He has not yet stopped.

Having spent most of his career based in Seattle, WA, now claiming Los Angeles, CA as home, Buddy has been a busker in Amsterdam, a street vendor in Spain, a team leader in Singapore, a re-delivery boy, a candy maker, a street sweeper, a bartender, a maid, a construction worker, a bull rider, an incredibly slow triathlete and a facilitator at Quantum Learning Network. He loves peanut butter, power napping, chopping wood and Vipassana meditation. Wakefield is an actor, a writer, elated son of a guitar repair woman, wingman of Giant Saint Everything and pays attention.

An author at Write Bloody Publishing and an original Board of Directors member with Youth Speaks Seattle, Buddy is published internationally in dozens of books with work used to win multiple national collegiate debate and forensics competitions. Wakefield, who is not concerned with what poetry is or is not, delivers raw, rounded, disarming performances of humor and heart.