Lyrically Speaking: The Art and Power of Songwriting | The AUXdacity

Nikky Finney was born by the sea in South Carolina and raised during the Civil Rights, Black Power, and Black Arts Movements. The only daughter of a civil rights lawyer who became the first Black elected chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court and an elementary school teacher, Finney earned her bachelor's degree in English Literature at Talladega College in 1979 and has authored six books, including On Wings Made of Gauze, RICE, The World Is Round, Head Off & Split, and Love Child's Hotbed of Occasional Poetry, with her work exploring and confronting the experiences that have shaped life in the South for African Americans. 

Her poetry collection Head Off & Split won the 2011 National Book Award, and her acceptance speech went viral. She currently holds the John H. Bennett, Jr. Chair in Creative Writing and Southern Literature at the University of South Carolina, a Carolina Distinguished Professorship, and serves as a Chancellor of the American Academy of Poets, as well as Executive Director of the Ernest A. Finney, Jr. Cultural Arts Center in Columbia.

Dan McCurry is a Charleston, SC-based musician, producer, piano teacher, and record label founder who has been a central figure in the Lowcountry music scene for over a decade. A Charleston native, he attended the College of Charleston, where he studied music composition under Dr. David Maves and Dr. Edward Hart and jazz piano under the late Tommy Gill, graduating cum laude with a Bachelor's in Music Theory and Composition in 2007. McCurry got his start as a performer with the band Run Dan Run and in 2012 founded the independent record label Hearts and Plugs, helping Charleston artists gain national attention while playing, producing, and managing releases for over 15 bands. 

As a music educator, he is a Royal Conservatory of Music Certified teacher, a piano faculty member at Ashley Hall, and serves as President of both the Charleston Music Teachers Association and the Charleston Music Club, as well as Creativity In Music Chair for the South Carolina Music Teachers Association — a role in which he has championed student composition, helping launch a statewide composition competition and workshops, with his students earning local, regional, and national recognition and earning acceptance into prestigious programs at institutions such as Peabody, Interlochen, and Brevard.