Macon Fry is an author, writer, and educator. He is author of the memoir, They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans (University Press of Mississippi). The book tells the previously untold story of perhaps the oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture.

For the better part of two centuries, batture dwellers such as Macon Fry have raised shantyboats on stilts, built water-adapted homes, foraged, fished, and survived using the skills a river teaches.

Jimbo Mathus is a singer-songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work with the swing revival band Squirrel Nut Zippers.

Jimbo recently wrapped a tour with The Dial Back Sound,  and is currently on the road with a trio capable of spanning material from Mathus’ entire 20-album solo catalog, available at Jimbo Mathus.

Mathus’ latest solo release is Incinerator (Big Legal Mess). He recently released an acclaimed collaboration with violinist Andrew Bird, These 13 (Thirty Tigers).

W8ing4UFOs is an alternative rock band from Atlanta, GA. Their latest album is Don’t Let the Asshats Burn You (Striped Light). Creative Loafing said W8ing4UFOs is “one of our town’s most idiosyncratic, literarily astute bands.”

Bill Taft, of W8ing4UFOs is also the academic director for Common Good Atlanta, an organization that provides free college instruction in the arts to the incarcerated.

The group currently has a traveling exhibit, See Us Differently, that features bookmaking, painting, mixed media sculptures and graphic narratives based on “Paradise Lost” and “Frankenstein,” all created by currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.

Taft, his band and the traveling exhibit are all part of this year’s Sarahfest ‘Do It Yourself’ theme – we know about that – with the coolest website name ever: https://www.sarahfest.rocks/