Nick Pence
Guitar
Nick Pence is a well-known guitar player from St. Louis. Nick plays with The Bottlesnakes, The Dust Covers or The New Missouri Fox Hunters. These two have worked together in the past, including forming a gospel group The Houndsteeth.
Vanessa Perez Winder
Vanessa Perez Winder is a Peruvian American writer, editor, and arts worker committed to liberatory and decolonial forms of research, theory, and curatorial praxis. Their writing on Bay Area artists has appeared in Variable West, Intervenxions, the Reunited exhibition catalogue, and at Root Division, San Francisco. Vanessa recently received their MA in the Visual & Critical Studies program at California College of the Arts, and was previously the 2024-2025 Lead Editor of student-led publication Rewind Review Respond at CCA, and the 2024-2025 Exhibitions Fellow at Root Division.
Nicole Persun
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Nicole J. Persun is an award-winning and internationally bestselling novelist with a master’s degree in creative writing and instruction. She writes in many genres, most notably contemporary fiction under the pen name Jennifer Gold. Nicole has taught writers as a keynote speaker, in large-scale class settings, intimate workshops, and one-on-one coaching for over twelve years. For more information, visit nicolejpersun.com or jennifergoldauthor.com.
Jeff Peterson
Born on the Island of Maui, two-time Grammy Award nominee and fourteen-time Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award winner Jeff Peterson grew up on the slopes of Haleakalā where he was introduced to the rich heritage of Hawaiian music by his father, a paniolo, or Hawaiian cowboy, on the Haleakalā Ranch. He went on to study guitar and music composition at the University of Southern California and the University of Hawaiʻi in Mānoa.…
Phil and Russ Tanner
Gid Tanner was a farmer in Dacula, Georgia, and played the fiddle on the side. By 1926, he and other musicians such as Clayton McMichen on fiddle and Riley Puckett on guitar, created a group called Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers
Dawn Pichón Barron
Afternoon Workshop Faculty
Dawn Pichón Barron is currently the academic director/faculty of the undergraduate interdisciplinary Native Pathways Program at the Evergreen State College. She writes across borders and genres, while dreaming of ripe lemon sunrays at the southern tip of the Salish Sea–on the lands of the Medicine Creek treaty tribes and bands—with her wingman and Chihuahuas. Her chapbook, ESCAPE GIRL BLUES, was published by Finishing Line Press, 2018.…
Karin Plato
Canadian vocalist and composer Karin Plato came to jazz almost by accident. The music she heard in her formative years was the rock and pop music of the day and the classical music she studied from a young age. She didn’t get the “jazz bug” until she was in her early 30’s and that’s when her music career really began when she made the move from central Canada to the West Coast.
Jessica Plumb
Jessica Plumb is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and interdisciplinary artist who crafts nonfiction stories infused with wonder and a strong sense of place; she is best known in Jefferson County for the feature documentary Return of the River, the story of the Elwha River dam removal.
Jessica Plumb
Jessica Plumb is an award-winning filmmaker and writer, as well as the principal and creative director of Plumb Productions, a multi-media storytelling company specializing in short films focused on the environment, people, and place.
Jessica is the Producer and Co-Director of Return of the River, a feature documentary about the largest dam removal in history, which occurred on the Elwha river.…
Randy Porter
Faculty
Jazz pianist Randy Porter has a refined understanding of improvisation and the spontaneous communication between musicians. As a Steinway Artist, Randy Porter draws from a rich palette of sonorities found within his imagination and the depths of the piano.