34 - Dante's Old South Radio Show (February 2022)

Ashley M. Jones is Poet Laureate of the state of Alabama (2022-2026). She holds an MFA in Poetry from Florida International University, and she is the author of Magic City Gospel (Hub City Press 2017),  dark / / thing (Pleiades Press 2019), and REPARATIONS NOW! (Hub City Press 2021). Her poetry has earned several awards, including the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers Award, the Silver Medal in the Independent Publishers Book Awards, the Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry, a Literature Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts, the Lucille Clifton Poetry Prize, and the Lucille Clifton Legacy Award. She was a finalist for the Ruth Lily Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellowship in 2020, and her collection, REPARATIONS NOW! was on the longlist for the 2022 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry. Her poems and essays appear in or are forthcoming at CNN, POETRY, The Oxford American, Origins Journal, The Quarry by Split This Rock, Obsidian, and many others. She teaches Creative Writing at the Alabama School of Fine Arts and in the Low Residency MFA at Converse University. Jones co-directs PEN Birmingham, and she is the founding director of the Magic City Poetry Festival. She recently served as a guest editor for Poetry Magazine. Scott Evan Davis is a multi-award winning composer/lyricist and social media personality.   Scott has performed concerts and song cycles of his music throughout the USA as well as internationally.   His two albums, Next and Cautiously Optimistic are available worldwide and feature a host of Broadway talent.   Currently Scott is developing his first full -length musical called INDIGO, with Sing Out Louise Productions. The show is about a non- verbal girl with autism who teaches everyone around her how to truly communicate. Scott’s awards include the 2017 MAC award for Best Song, the 2012 Broadway World award for Best Original Song for “If We Say Goodbye,” and the 2016 ASCAP GORNEY award for his song “If the World Only Knew” for its social message. His newest single “Falling Everyday” is available on all streaming platforms.  More at www.scottevandavis.com Ashley Griggs is a screenwriter who hails from Herndon, VA. She earned her BA in Film Studies and French at the College of William & Mary, and later received her MFA in Dramatic Writing from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University where she was awarded a Future Screenwriters Fellowship. In addition to screenwriting, Ashley has done work for the Cannes Film Festival and Austin Film Festival, written for the narrative podcast The Host, directed plays in NYC and LA, and mentors teens with nonprofit WriteGirl LA. Ashley currently works with the Writers’ Program and Entertainment Studies division at UCLA Extension and lives in Los Angeles. Music:  “You Don’t Always Get What You Want” Rolling Stones “Falling Everyday” Lyrics by Scott Evan Davis and performed by Joey Auch Special Thanks Goes to: Woodbridge Inn: www.woodbridgeinnjasper.com Autism Speaks: www.autismspeaks.org Mostly Mutts: www.mostlymutts.org Meadowbrook Inn: www.meadowbrook-inn.com The Red Phone Booth: www.redphonebooth.com The host, Clifford Brooks, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics and Athena Departs are available everywhere books are sold. His chapbook, Exiles of Eden, is only available through my website. To find them all, please reach out to him at: [email protected] Check out his Teachable courses on thriving with autism and creative writing as a profession here: www.brooks-sessions.teachable.com