Shannon McNally’s busy spring has included appearances at South by Southwest with Charlie Sexton (Bob Dylan’s guitarist) and even joining Willie Nelson. She is also touring as the opening act for Stephen Stills and Kenny Wayne Shepard. Her previous album Small Town Talk (2013) was a tribute to Louisiana songwriter Bobby Charles that featured Luther Dickinson, Vince Gill and Derek Trucks and was produced by Dr. John. Her new CD, Black Irish, will be released this June and is produced by Rodney Crowell.

Nathan Pieplow is the author of Peterson’s Field Guide to Bird Sounds of Eastern North America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) a groundbreaking book that explains how to visually distinguish birds by sound and ID them using a field guide format.  Pieplow is the former editor of the journal Colorado Birds and author of Colorado Birding Trail. He lives in Boulder, Colorado, where he teaches writing and rhetoric at the University of Colorado.

Julie Buntin is the author of Marlena (Henry Holt), an electric debut novel about love, addiction, and loss. It’s the story of two girls and a year that will cost one her life, and define the other’s for decades. Buntin is from northern Michigan. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Cosmopolitan, Slate, and Electric Literature, among other publications. She teaches fiction at Marymount Manhattan College, and is the Director of Writing Programs at Catapult. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

61 Ghosts is a blues power trio fronted by New York veteran guitarist Joe Mazzari and the Mississippi rhythm section of Dixie Street on drums and J.D. Sipe on bass. Their latest release is the six song EP, “…To the Edge.” The group has another CD in the works as well as a spring/summer tour that includes dates in Ireland.