Tom Green
Tom Green
R.I.P – September 4, 2012
Considered to be one of the most prominent Washington D.C. artists of the last century, Green led art in the city away from the prevalent trend of painters in the Washington Color School while working for 35 years as an instructor at the Corcoran College of Art and Design. He encouraged his students to look inward towards a personal vocabulary of form, a commandment he personified. One of his most defining characteristics to those who knew him was his ever-present black sketchbook in which he would constantly draw, reacting to the world around him.
October 2019 Retrospective – Addison/Ripley Fine Art, Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Allen Toussaint
in memorium
Artist Biography by Steve Huey
Producer, songwriter, arranger, session pianist, solo artist — Allen Toussaint wore all these hats over the course of his lengthy and prolific career, and his behind-the-scenes work alone would have been enough to make him a legend of New Orleans R&B. Thanks to his work with numerous other artists, Toussaintbore an enormous amount of responsibility for the sound of R&B in the Crescent City from the ’60s on into the ’70s. His productions kept with the times, moving from rollicking, earthy soul in the ’60s to gritty, rambunctious funk in the ’70s. As a composer, Toussaint proved himself a consistent hitmaker, penning more than a few gems that have since become R&B standards and been covered by countless artists working in many different styles. In keeping with that across-the-board appeal, Toussaint worked in some supporting capacity for a wide variety of rock and blues legends, particularly from the ’70s on. On top of all that, Toussaint waxed his own records from time to time, enjoying a creative peak in the ’70s with several albums that highlighted his laid-back vocals and elegantly funky piano work. Even if he wasn’t always the most visible figure, Toussaint‘s contributions to New Orleans music — and to rock & roll in general — were such that he earned induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998.
Wallace Stroby
Wallace Stroby
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.
A graduate of Rutgers University, Stroby was an editor at the Star-Ledger of Newark, Tony Soprano’s hometown newspaper, for 13 years.
Kate Atkinson
Location – Edinboro, Scotland
Kate Atkinson
Latest works include Shrines of Gaiety (London in the Roaring 20’s) and Normal Rules Don’t Apply ( Short Stories)
Kate Atkinson was born in York in 1951 and studied English Literature at Dundee University.
After graduating in 1974, she researched a postgraduate doctorate on American Literature. She later taught at Dundee and began writing short stories in 1981. She began writing for women’s magazines after winning the 1986 Woman’s Own Short Story Competition. She was runner-up for the Bridport Short Story Prize in 1990 and won an Ian St James Award in 1993 for her short-story Karmic Mothers, which she later adapted for BBC2 television as part of its ‘Tartan Shorts’ series. Her first novel, Behind the Scenes at the Museum (1995), won the 1995 Whitbread Book of the Year award, beating Salman Rushdie’s The Moor’s Last Sigh and Roy Jenkins’ biography Gladstone. The book is set in Yorkshire, narrated by Ruby Lennox, who takes the reader through the complex history of her family, covering the events of the twentieth century and reaching back into the past to uncover the lives of distant ancestors. The book has been adapted for radio and theatre, and has been adapted for television by the author. Her second novel, Human Croquet, was published in 1997 and relates the story of another family, the Fairfaxes, through flashback and historical narrative. Her third novel, Emotionally Weird, was published in 2000, and in 2002 a collection of short stories, Not the End of the World.
Kate Atkinson has written two plays for the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh: a short play, Nice (1996), and Abandonment, which premiered as part of the Edinburgh Festival in August 2000. She currently lives in Edinburgh and is an occasional contributor to newspapers and magazines. The four books Case Histories (2004), One Good Turn (2006), shortlisted for the British Book Awards Crime Thriller of the Year, When Will There be Good News? (2008) and Started Early, Took My Dog (2010), form a crime series featuring ex-policeman Jackson Brodie. These books were adapted for television and a 6-part series starring Jason Isaacs as Jackson Brodie was broadcast in 2011. In 2013 she published Life after Life, winner of the Costa Novel Award and the South Bank Sky Arts Literature Prize; and A God in Ruins (2015), a companion novel to Life After Life, featuring several of the same characters. In 2019 Jackson Brodie returned in Big Sky, and Atkinson also published Transcription.
(British Council – Literature)
Ridley Pearson
Ridley Pearson
Edgar-nominee, Ridley Pearson is a #1 New York Times bestselling author of (more than 50) award-winning suspense and young adult adventure novels. His novels have been published in two-dozen languages and have been adapted for network television and the Broadway stage. Ridley’s crime novels have earned a reputation for writing fiction that “grips the imagination.”
Ridley’s middle-grade-reader series include, The Kingdom Keepers, Steel Trapp and Lock & Key. The Peter and the Starcatchers series,co-written with Pulitzer Prize winner (and bandmate), Dave Barry, (adapted to the stage by Rick Elice) was awarded 5 Tony Awards.
Ridley’s research has spanned the globe and has included, a prison for the criminally insane in the U.K., exploring the engine room of a cruise liner, and multiple after-hour tours of Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
Ridley plays bass guitar in an all-author rock band comprised of other bestselling writers (Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Mitch Album, Scott Turow, Greg Iles, and occasionally, Stephen King). The Rockbottom Remainders, has raised over 2.5 million dollars for various non-profits. He lives–and writes–in the Northern Rockies along with his wife, Marcelle.
Fur Peace Ranch
Fur Peace Ranch
Jorma Koukonen
Pomeroy, Ohio
Jorma and Vanessa’s goal was to create a place where musicians could come together and surround themselves with music for several days and emerge with a new found inspiration. Jorma says he wants to “demystify the process of playing music” for those who attend the camp. For students arriving around noon on a Friday and leaving Monday morning with classes scattered throughout the days, the process of demystifying music may come with ease. Guitar is the main language spoken at FPR.
