A nationally bestselling author of 11 mystery novels, Ryan has won multiple prestigious awards for her crime fiction: five Agathas, three Anthonys, the Daphne, two Macavitys, and for The Other Woman, the coveted Mary Higgins Clark Award. National reviews have called her a “master at crafting suspenseful mysteries” and “a superb and gifted storyteller.”
William Christopher Smither is an American folk/blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter. His music draws deeply from the blues, American folk music, and modern poets and philosophers. Wikipedia
Billy Price is a legendary soul-blues vocalist who has spent over five decades as a cornerstone of the Pittsburgh music scene. He first gained national prominence in the mid-1970s as the lead singer for guitar virtuoso Roy Buchanan, appearing on acclaimed albums like That’s What I’m Here For and the high-energy Live Stock. This early exposure established Price as a premier interpreter of “blue-eyed soul,” a reputation he solidified after forming the Keystone Rhythm Band in 1977. Throughout the 1980s, the group became a regional powerhouse, blending gritty urban blues with the smooth, rhythmic phrasing of Southern soul.
In the years following the Keystone Rhythm Band, Price continued to refine his craft with the Billy Price Band. A career pinnacle arrived in 2016 when he won a Blues Music Award for Best Soul Blues Album for This Time for Real, a collaborative project with his long-time idol, Otis Clay. Price has remained remarkably prolific in his later years, releasing celebrated albums such as Reckoning and Dog Eat Dog, both of which earned further award nominations. His 2024 release, Person of Interest, marked a significant creative milestone as his first collection consisting entirely of original material. Beyond his musical life, Price maintained a long-term professional career in corporate communications at Carnegie Mellon University until 2023. Now fully retired from his “day job,” he continues to tour extensively across the United States and Europe, remaining a vital force in the international blues community.
“Iris DeMent makes music that celebrates humanity’s efforts toward salvation, while acknowledging that most of our time on Earth is spent reconciling with the fact that we don’t feel so redeemed. Grounded in hymns, early country songs, gospel and folk, DeMent’s work is treasured by those who know it for its insight and unabashed beauty.” ~ NPR
Loren Salazar was born in California in 1951. Graduated with Honors in 1973 from Central Washington State University with a degree in Fine Arts and Sciences. Salazar has painted and exhibited extensively in the western states of Washington, California, and Alaska. His work has been exhibited across the country and his published images are found internationally. Currently calling Cost Rica home, Salazar continues to paint image locations from Italy to South America.
Salazar’s photorealistic technique developed into a long series of works based on visual memory. This involved numerous images and places occupying the same picture plane. These images dissolved in and out of one another in long horizontal compositions.
With the encouragement of close friend and mentor Andreas Nottebohm, Salazar set fourth on a 4 year series of works on etched aluminum, a technique pioneered by San Francisco artist Nottebohm. While living near Lake Arenal in Costa Rica, Salazar’s nights were consumed creating a series of paintings based on “The “Northern Lights” or “Aurora Borealis”. This series was painted in layers of transparent acrylic on etched aluminum. From Arenal, Salazar shipped the Northern Light Series to galleries in Alaska, Washington, and California.
The Subdudes are an American roots rock group from New Orleans. Their music blends folk, swamp pop, New Orleans rhythm and blues, Louisiana blues, country, cajun/zydeco, funk, soul and gospel with harmonic vocals. Their sound is notable for the band’s substitution of a tambourine player for a drummer.
New recording out now
Wallace Stroby is an award-winning journalist and the author of eight novels, four of which feature professional thief Crissa Stone, whom Kirkus Reviews named “Crime fiction’s best bad girl ever.”
A Long Branch, N.J., native, he’s a lifelong resident of the Jersey Shore. His debut novel THE BARBED-WIRE KISS, which The Washington Post called “a scorching first novel …full of attention to character and memory and, even more, to the neighborhoods of New Jersey,” was a finalist for the 2004 Barry Award for Best First Novel.
His 2010 novel GONE ‘TIL NOVEMBER was picked as a Kirkus Best Book of the Year, as was the second Crissa Stone novel KINGS OF MIDNIGHT. In 2012, the Crissa Stone novels were optioned by Showtime Networks for development.
Anders Osborne has earned hordes of new fans. He has toured virtually non-stop, either with his own band, as a solo artist, or as a guest with his countless musical admirers, including Toots and The Maytals, Stanton Moore, Derek Trucks, Warren Haynes, Keb Mo, The Grateful Dead’s Phil Lesh, Jackie Greene and Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe. He’s produced and played on critically acclaimed albums by Tab Benoit, Johnny Sansone and Mike Zito.
Since his recording debut in 1989, Osborne has written virtually all of his own material and contributed memorable songs to a wide variety of artists. Two tunes co-written by Osborne appear on Keb Mo’s Grammy-winning 1999 release Slow Down. Country superstar Tim McGraw scored a #1 hit with Anders’ song Watch The Wind Blow By. Osborne’s compositions have been covered by artists as diverse as Brad Paisley, Tab Benoit, Jonny Lang, Edwin McCain, Sam Bush, Trombone Shorty and Aaron Neville and Kim Carnes. His songs have appeared in multiple feature films. He can also be seen performing in an episode of HBO’s New Orleans-based drama, Treme.
Rachael Yamagata is an American singer-songwriter and pianist from Arlington, Virginia. She began her musical career with the band Bumpus before becoming a solo artist and releasing five EPs and four studio albums. Wikipedia
Edgar, Shamus, Macavity and Lefty nominee Timothy Hallinan has written twenty-one published novels, all thrillers and mysteries, all critically praised. He currently writes two series, one set in Los Angeles and the other in Bangkok, and in 2017 he also revived his earlier series, written in the 1990s about the overeducated slacker private eye Simeon Grist. The new book, the first since 1995, is “Pulped.”
His 2014 Junior Bender novel, “Herbie’s Game,” won the Lefty Award for Best Comic Crime Novel of the year. His 2010 Poke Rafferty Bangkok novel, “The Queen of Patpong,” was nominated for the Edgar as Best Mystery of the Year.
The Junior Bender mysteries chronicle the adventures of a burglar who moonlights as a private eye for crooks. Six titles have been published to date, and “Herbie’s Game” (2015) won the Lefty Award for Best Comic Crime Novel. The other titles in the series are “Crashed,” “Little Elvises,” “The Fame Thief,” “King Maybe,” and “Fields Where They Lay,” which was on many “Best Books of 2016” lists. Coming in 2018 is “Nighttown.”
The Junior Bender books are presently in development as a primetime television series.
In 2007, the first of his Edgar-nominated Poke Rafferty Bangkok thrillers, “A Nail Through the Heart”, was published. “Hallinan scores big-time,” said Kirkus Reviews, which went on to call the book “dark, often funny, and ultimately enthralling.” “Nail” was named one of the top mysteries of the year by The Japan Times.
Rafferty’s Bangkok adventures have continued with “The Fourth Watcher,” “Breathing Water,” “The Queen of Patpong,” “The Fear Artist,” “For the Dead,” and “The Hot Countries.” Coming in 2017 is “Fools’ River.”
In the 1990s he wrote six mysteries featuring the erudite private eye Simeon Grist, beginning with “The Four Last Things,” which made several Ten Best lists, including that of The Drood Review. The other books in the series were well reviewed, and several of them were optioned for motion pictures. The series is now regarded as a cult favorite and is being revived, in one sense of the word, with “Pulped.”
He has also edited two books. “Shaken: Stories for Japan” contained original stories by top mystery writers and raised more then $100,000 for tsunami relief efforts, with every penny going straight to Japan. “Making Story: 21 Writers and How They Plot” contained practical ideas on plotting by well-known mystery and thriller writers.
Hallinan divides his time between Los Angeles and Southeast Asia, the setting for his Poke Rafferty novels. (Amazon)
