Daniel Mason is the author of The Winter Soldier (Little, Brown), “part mystery, part war story, part romance.” Lucius Krzelewski is a 22-year-old, upper-class medical student pressed into surgery (he’s never lifted a scapel) under brutal conditions in 1914 World War I. Fortunately, he is guided by Sister Margarete of St. Catherine’s, a nurse who teaches him the surgical skills he lacks. They become lovers. One of their patients is a shell-shocked soldier who can only communicate by drawing pictures. Lucius becomes obsessed with finding a cure for this patient, whom he dubs the ‘winter soldier.’

With Margarete’s sudden disappearance, Lucius’s world is plunged into mystery before he eventually returns to Vienna, haunted by the fates of Margarete – was she even a nun? – and the winter soldier.

Mason is a physician and author of the novels The Piano Tuner and A Far Country. His work has been translated into twenty-eight languages and adapted for opera and theater. A recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts, he is currently a clinical assistant professor of psychiatry at Stanford University.

Alexa Rose is a rootsy, alternative folk songstress from the Carolina mountains. Her latest release is the full-length LP, Low and Lonesome. The album was recorded in Asheville, NC where Rose won that city’s Brown Bag Songwriting Contest in 2016. Her previous release was North.

As one reviewer wrote: “Carolina songstress Alexa Rose crafts clever lyrics and boot-tapping mountain magic in her own brand of modern folk.”

Singer-songwriter Zach Day was born in Jackson, raised in Greenville and now splits his time between Hazlehurst and Austin, TX. His rootsy Americana style combines blues and country music in a blend he calls “cotton country.” His latest CD is Mississippi Heat. His previous CDs include Southern Pride and Highway Outlaw.