Sam Lipsyte is the author of the novel Hark (Simon Schuster), a brilliant social satire of contemporary culture. Hark Morner is an unwitting guru whose technique of “Mental Archery”—a combination of mindfulness, mythology, fake history, yoga, and archery—is set to captivate the masses and raise him to near-messiah status. 

Lipsyte is the author of the story collections Venus Drive and The Fun Parts and three previous novels: The Ask, The Subject Steve, and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book.

Snowden Wright is the author of American Pop (Harper Collins), a sweeping novel that follows a family from 1870 to 1980. The book begins in Mississippi with Houghton Forster, a first-generation American who invents Panola Cola, a fizzy drink that makes him rich. Moving from Mississippi to Paris to New York and back again, the book is a saga of family, ambition, passion, and tragedy that brings to life one unforgettable Southern dynasty against the backdrop of more than a century of American cultural history.

A Mississippi native, Snowden’s previous novel was Play Pretty Blues, based on the life of blues musician Robert Johnson.

Sharde Thomas and the Rising Stars Fife and Drum Band