Jay Brakefield Author

Alan Govenar is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, photographer, and filmmaker. He is director of Documentary Arts, a non-profit organization he founded to advance essential perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar is a Guggenheim Fellow and the author of more than thirty books, including Paradise in the Smallest Thing, Stoney Knows How: Life as a Tattoo Artist, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Untold Glory, Texas Blues, Stompin’ at the Savoy, Everyday Music, Texas in Paris, Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter, and A Pillow on the Ocean of Time. His novel Boccaccio in the Berkshires was published by Deep Vellum in 2021, and his biography of Blind Lemon Jefferson, See That My Grave is Kept Clean (co-authored with Kip Lornell) will be published by Deep Vellum in 2023. 

 Jay Brakefield is a native of Houston and graduated from the University of Houston with a BA in English in 1968. He spent four decades as a newspaper reporter and copy editor. Early on he developed a keen interest in "roots music," especially blues and jazz, and wrote a number of related articles for The Dallas Morning News. Brakefield and Alan Govenar have collaborated on a number of projects.