Festival Information
Switchyard and the World of Bob Dylan 2023 are almost here! We’re excited to welcome you to downtown Tulsa for this six-day festival of music, art, and ideas. The full Switchyard program includes 26 speakers, 14 bands, a special reception to launch the Switchyard magazine and Switchyard podcast, new art shows at 101 Archer, and after-party concerts every…
Music Announcement: Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams and Robbie Fulks Perform June 3
BUY YOUR SWITCHYARD MUSIC PASS HERE Photographed by Gregg Roth Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter LARRY CAMPBELL and singer-guitarist TERESA WILLIAMS will take the stage at Cain’s Ballroom on Saturday, June 3. They had an acclaimed eponymous 2015 debut, released after seven years of playing in Levon Helm’s band – and frequent guesting with Phil Lesh, Little Feat,…
Music Announcement: John Fullbright Performs June 2
BUY YOUR SWITCHYARD MUSIC PASS HERE Photographed by Vicki Farmer JOHN FULLBRIGHT will take the stage at Cain’s Ballroom on Friday, June 2. Born in Okemah, Fullbright began playing the piano when he was five. He had his debut performance at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival and got his start in the Turnpike Troubadours. His…
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Music Announcement: Rodney Crowell Performs June 1 with Opening Act Rob Ickes & Trey Hensley
BUY YOUR SWITCHYARD MUSIC PASS HERE Photographed by Austin Lord RODNEY CROWELL needs no introduction. He is the songwriter’s songwriter and an icon among giants. Native Texan, Crowell is a multi-Grammy Award-winning troubadour with fifteen number one hits. Over the course of his career, Crowell has gracefully blended his own mainstream success as an artist…
Music Announcement: Jeff Slate & Friends (with special guests) Performs May 31
BUY YOUR SWITCHYARD MUSIC PASS HERE Photographed by Bob Gruen JEFF SLATE & FRIENDS are the premiere New York City band performing shows that combine sets honoring the legends of Classic Rock with original music inspired by those artists. For over a decade, Jeff Slate & Friends have played to sold out crowds paying tribute…
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Music Announcement: Willi Carlisle and Jaimee Harris Perform May 30
BUY YOUR SWITCHYARD MUSIC PASS HERE WILLI CARLISLE is a poet and a folk singer for the people, but his extraordinary gift for turning a phrase isn’t about high falutin’ pontificatin’; it’s about looking out for one another and connecting through our shared human condition. Born and raised on the Midwestern plains, Carlisle is a…
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Keynote Announcement: Katie Farris
Poet, translator, editor, and fiction writer, Katie Farris creates fluid hybrid forms that seek to carry readers across imaginative thresholds. In 2019’s boygirls, she travels through ancient and modern myths to create waking dreams, while her newest work, Standing in the Forest of Being Alive, has been called “luminous” by Carolyn Forche and “real genius”…
Keynote Announcement: Ilya Kaminsky
Photograph from Georgia Tech Born in Odessa, Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Ilya Kaminsky moved to the United States in 1993 when his family was granted asylum. Declared “one of the 12 artists who changed the world” by the BBC, his accessible yet probing work has been translated into more…
Keynote Announcement: Reginald Dwayne Betts
Photographed by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation A poet, lawyer, and McArthur genius winner, Reginald Dwayne Betts has spent over two decades exploring the world of prison and the effects of incarceration on American society. As the Executive Director of the non-profit Freedom Reads Initiative, he has led the effort to get…
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Keynote Announcement: Natasha Tretheway
The 19th US Poet Laureate, Natasha Tretheway’s writing explores the intersection of memory, race, and history by mixing investigative rigor with poetic vision. In the Pulitzer-winning Native Guard, she seeks to recover lost histories by imagining the Mississippi’s largely forgotten Black Civil War soldiers alongside the life of her mother, whose mixed-race marriage in the…
Keynote Announcement: Valeria Luiselli
Photo by Diego Berruecos Valeria Luiselli is the author of several renowned books, including The Lost Children’s Archive and Tell Me How it Ends: An Essay in 40 Questions. The former was long listed for the Booker Prize, and the latter won the American Book Award in 2018. Over the course of her career, her…
Keynote Announcement: Rebecca Makkai
Rebecca Makkai’s dazzling stories have appeared in several prominent publications and anthologies, including The New England Review, This American Life, and The Best American Short Stories. Her novel, The Great Believers, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. In it, Makkai tells the story of the gay community in the 1980s,…
Keynote Announcement: Maia Kobabe
Maia Kobabe is the author of Gender Queer, an acclaimed graphic novel that won the ALA Alex Award and Stonewall-Israel Fishman Award. Famous as it is infamous, Gender Queer earned the top spot for the most challenged book in 2021-22 for “sexually explicit” and LGBTQIA+ content, according to the American Library Association. Kobabe has become…
Keynote Announcement: Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is the acclaimed creator of the Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel Maus and its sequel, Maus II. Both are narratives of survival that illustrate Spiegelman’s parent’s experience during the Holocaust. This series is used in school curricula across the nation but has frequently been targeted by those who object to its graphic depiction…