Nic Brown is the author of a memoir based on his music career as a drummer, Bang Bang Crash (Counterpoint). In the mid-1990s, fresh out of high school, Brown was living his childhood dream: a rock and roll drummer, signed to a major label, playing big shows, hitting the charts, giving interviews in Rolling Stone and appearing on The Tonight Show.

And yet… he decided to become a writer, embarking on a journey leading him to attend the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, publish novels and short stories, and teach literature to college students across the country.

Bang Bang Crash is the story of Brown’s unusual journey to discover an even greater life of artistic fulfillment.

“A well-written rock memoir that evades the usual clichés.” — Kirkus Reviews

Nic Brown’s previous books include the novels In Every Way, Doubles, and Floodmarkers, which was selected as an Editors’ Choice by The New York Times Book Review.

A graduate of Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he has served as the Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi and is now an associate professor of creative writing at Clemson University.

Minnesota-born roots musician Charlie Parr plays a Mule resonator, National resonator guitar, a fretless open-back banjo, and a twelve-string guitar, often in the Piedmont blues style. Among his thirteen albums are his most recent: Dog (2017), CHARLIE PARR (2019), and Last of the Better Days Ahead (2021).

Using Duluth as his home base, Parr tours and records in unusual spaces (warehouses, garages, living rooms, storefronts) often employing vintage or lo-fi techniques.

Photo: Dianne Bruce Dunlau

Tyler Keith is the author of the novel, The Mark of Cain (Cool Dog Sound). In the book, Ronnie Harrison is released from prison and struggles to piece together a new life from the wreckage of his old one. As a condition of his early parole, Ronnie must stay at a halfway-house for ex-cons called Camp Eden, where things are not exactly what they seem.

Harrison’s quest for redemption, in a world of moonshine, marijuana and meth, explodes in a violent conclusion.

Keith is also a musician with some 14 albums to his credit. His latest, recorded with his band, The Apostles, is Hell to Pay.

Tyler Keith was born in the panhandle of Florida. After high school he moved to Mississippi where he studied writing at Ole Miss with the late Barry Hannah.

Keith lives in Oxford, MS.