Dischord Records is a Washington, D.C.-based independent record label specializing in punk rock. The label is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded Dischord in 1980 to release Minor Disturbance by their band The Teen Idles. With other independent American labels such as Twin/Tone, Touch and Go Records, and SST Records, Dischord helped to spearhead the nationwide network of underground bands that formed the 1980s indie rock scene. These labels presided over the shift from the hardcore punk that then dominated the American underground scene to the more diverse styles of alternative rock that were emerging.
Rites of Spring was an American punk rock band from Washington, D.C., formed in late 1983. Along with Embrace, and Beefeater, they were one of the mainstay acts of the 1985 Revolution Summer movement which took place within the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene.
Brian Baker is an American punk rock musician. He is best known as one of the founding members of the hardcore punk band Minor Threat, and as a guitarist in Bad Religion since 1994. In Minor Threat, he originally played bass guitar before switching to guitar in 1982 when Steve Hansgen joined the band, and then moved back to bass after Hansgen's departure. He also founded Dag Nasty in 1985, was part of the original line-up of Samhain, and has had stints in Doggy Style, The Meatmen, Government Issue, and Junkyard.
Noir fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction.
Arthur Nersesian is an American novelist, playwright, and poet.
Washington, D.C., hardcore, commonly referred to as D.C. hardcore, sometimes styled in writing as harDCore, is the hardcore punk scene of Washington, D.C. Emerging in late 1979, it is considered one of the first and most influential punk scenes in the United States.
Cynthia Connolly is an American photographer, curator, graphic designer, and artist.
Dischord Records is an independent record label specializing in the punk rock music of the Washington, D.C., hardcore scene. The company is co-owned by Ian MacKaye and Jeff Nelson, who founded the label in December 1980. Before founding Dischord, both MacKaye and Nelson were members of the Teen Idles, and the label was initially meant to only foster a single release from the defunct band, the Minor Disturbance EP. By the time Dischord #1 was finished, many new bands had emerged from the same music scene, and like the Teen Idles, also began releasing their records through Dischord.
Tayari Jones is an American author and academic known for An American Marriage, which was a 2018 Oprah's Book Club Selection, and won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction. Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is currently a member of the English faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences at Emory University, and recently returned to her hometown of Atlanta after a decade in New York City. Jones was Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-large at Cornell University before becoming Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.
Bobby Sullivan is a musician and activist.
Bill Cameron is an American author.
The Next Generation Indie Book Awards, also known as the Indie Book Awards, is a literary awards program that recognizes and honors authors and publishers of exceptional independently published books in 70 different categories. "Indies" include small presses, larger independent publishers, university presses, e-book publishers, and self-published authors. Established in 2007, it is the largest international awards program for indie authors and independent publishers and is presented by the Independent Book Publishing Professionals Group.
Go the Fuck to Sleep is a satirical book written by American author Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Ricardo Cortés. Described as a "children's book for adults", it reached No. 1 on Amazon.com's bestseller list a month before its release, thanks to an unintended viral marketing campaign during which booksellers forwarded PDF copies of the book by e-mail.
Ricardo Cortés is an illustrator and author. He has written and illustrated a children's book about marijuana: It's Just a Plant. He illustrated Go the Fuck to Sleep, Adam Mansbach's bedtime story for adults, and I Don't Want To Blow You Up!, a coloring book with pages devoted to famous Muslims who are not terrorists.
Letters to Kurt is a collection of poetry and essays by musician Eric Erlandson, published in April 2012 by Akashic Books. The book largely reads as a meditation on suicide idols, and as an elegy to Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, whom Erlandson was acquainted with through Courtney Love; Erlandson served as a founding member and lead guitarist of Love's band, Hole, for eleven years.
Johnny Temple is an American bassist, known best for his work in the post-hardcore bands Soulside and Girls Against Boys. Temple also formed a side project with fellow Girls Against Boys member Scott McCloud called New Wet Kojak. In 1996 he founded Akashic Books out of Brooklyn with the intent of publishing works by independent artists.
Reed Farrel Coleman is an American writer of crime fiction and a poet.
Jaime Clarke is an American novelist and editor. He is a founding editor of the literary journal Post Road and co-owner, with his wife, of Newtonville Books, an independent bookstore in Boston.
Adam Mansbach is an American author. He has previously been a visiting professor of literature at Rutgers University-Camden, with their New Voices Visiting Writers program (2009–2011).
Bernice L. McFadden is an American novelist. She has also written humorous erotica under the pseudonym Geneva Holliday. Author of fifteen novels, she is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Tulane University in New Orleans.
