The Alluvian is a luxury boutique hotel in Greenwood, Mississippi, set within walking distance of Viking Range, the Yazoo River, and historic Cotton Row. Original art by Delta artists and a lively lobby scene make the Alluvian the epicenter of contemporary Delta culture.

Luther Brown is the founding director of the Delta Center for Culture and Learning at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. He is also one of the organizers of the Blues Highway Association and was named “Humanities Educator of the Year” by the Mississippi Humanities Council in 2003.

Cat Head Delta Blues & Folk Art, Inc. is a new addition to the Clarksdale scene. Owned and operated by Roger Stolle and his wife, Jennifer, the gallery is a veritable goldmine of fantastic Blues CDs, books, folk art by area artists and local charm. Legendary local musicians can often be seen hanging out or stopping in,  and many of them perform in the store regularly.

Clarksdale, Mississippi, is home of the Delta Blues Museum and of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983), widely regarded as the greatest American playwright of the twentieth century. For plays like The Glass Menagerie (1945), A Streetcar Named Desire (1947), Summer and Smoke (1948), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and The Night of the Iguana ( 1962) he earned many honors, including two Pulitzer Prizes and four Drama Critics Awards.

Maude Schuyler Clay is a fifth-generation native of the Delta town of Sumner, Mississippi. Her book of photographs, Delta Land, is a beautiful homage to her home.

The Crystal Grill in Greenwood is famous for its mile-high meringue pies. In business since the 1930s, the restaurant is owned an operated by the Ballas family.

Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, is celebrating its twenty-fifth year. Housed in the old railroad depot downtown, it features many permanent exhibits that speak to every aspect of the blues, past and present. A highlight is the tiny cabin that Muddy Waters once lived in that has been reassembled inside the museum.

Duff Dorrough of Ruleville, Mississippi, is a painter and musician. He is most well-known as a founding member of the Delta R&B band the Tangents. He now leads the gospel group The Revelators and The Duff Dorrough Band.

Amy Evans is a special projects consultant for Viking Range and leads the Southern Foodways Alliance’s Oral History Initiative. She is also a freelance photographer, painter, and co-founder of PieceWorks, an arts and outreach organization for the Deep South.

Giardina’s, opened by the Giardina family in 1936, is a local favorite for Italian-inflected Delta dishes like Gulf Pompano. The restaurant’s new home as part of the Alluvian hotel is a unique blend of old family recipes and modern elegance.

Greenville is known as the home of many Delta bluesmen and as Mississippi's literary center. It has been said that Greenville has produced more authors per capita than any other city its size in the country. Among the more than 100 writers who made this city on the Mississippi River their home during the 20th century are poet and biographer William Alexander Percy; novelist, historian, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Shelby Foote; Delta Democrat Times publisher Hodding Carter Jr. and his son, Hodding Carter III; historian and author Bern Keating; memoirist Clifton Taulbert; and novelists Ellen Douglas, Beverly Lowery, and Walker Percy.

Ground Zero is a renowned blues club and café in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Owned by Bill Luckett and actor Morgan Freeman, it is one of the best places to get your fix for collard greens and Delta Blues in one fell swoop.

Kenneth Holditch, a prominent literary scholar who is professor emeritus at the University of New Orleans, is the author of numerous short stories, poems, and essays on major Southern writers, including his friends Walker Percy and Tennessee Williams. He is the author of Tennessee Williams and the South, has edited the Tennessee Williams Journal since 1989, and, with New York Times drama critic Mel Gussow, edited the Library of America’s recent two-volume edition of the works of Tennessee Williams. His new book, Galatoires: Biography of a Bistro, written with Marda Burton, will be published this spring.

Spooney Kenter is a native of Greenwood, Mississippi. He owns and operates Spooney's Bar-Be-Que, specializing in chicken and ribs. Don't forget about the sauce!

Leland, Mississippi, was the boyhood home of Jim Henson, creator of Kermit the Frog and the Muppets. This beautiful Delta town has also been called home by dozens of bluesmen including Little Milton, James “Son” Thomas, and Johnny and Edgar Winters. With its proximity to Stoneville, the home of one of the world's largest agricultural research stations, Leland may be able to claim more advanced degrees per capita than any other non-college/university town in the state.

Beverly Lowry was born in Memphis and grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. She is the author of six novels, among them Come Back, Lolly Ray (1977), Daddy’s Girl (1981), and The Track of Real Desires (1994); two books of nonfiction, Crossed Over: A Murder, A Memoir (1994) and Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker (2003); and numerous stories and articles. Lowry has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Washington, D.C., and is director of the Creative Nonfiction Program at George Mason University.

Lusco’s has been in business since 1933 and is owned and operated by a fourth-generation Lusco, Andy Pinkston, and his wife Karen. This legendary restaurant has long been the haunt of Delta folks who revel in the restaurant’s down-at-the-heels gentility. Don’t miss this opportunity to dine in one of their infamous private booths.

Hugh & Mary Dayle McCormick are natives of Greenville, Mississippi, and founts of local Greenville history. Together they own and operate McCormick Book Inn, the premier Delta bookseller.

Princella Wilkerson Nowell, a journalist and local history buff, is the author of A Closer Look: A History and Guide to the Greenville Cemetery.

Ted Ownby is professor of history and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi. He is the author of Subduing Satan: Religion, Recreation, and Manhood in the Rural South, 1865-1920 and American Dreams in Mississippi: Consumers, Poverty, and Culture, 1830-1998.

Lisa & Billy Percy have deep ties to Greenville, Mississippi. Billy is a retired farmer, and his wife, Lisa, is a photographer.

Carver Randle is a native of Indianola, Mississippi, and is on the board of the B. B. King Foundation, which is bringing a long-awaited B. B. King Museum to the legendary bluesman’s hometown. The museum is scheduled to open its doors in 2006.

St. George’s Episcopal Church is in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Tom “Tennessee” Williams spent a great deal of his impressionable early childhood at St. George’s, where his maternal grandfather, the Reverend Walter E. Dakin, was rector for 16 years (1917-1933). Next door to the rectory lived a woman who kept a collection of glass animals in her window, which became inspiration for Williams’s play, The Glass Menagerie.

Jimmy Thomas is originally from the Delta town of Leland, Mississippi. He is the managing editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture and lives in Oxford, Mississippi.

Terry "Big T" Williams is a blues guitarist and from Clarksdale, Mississippi. He has performed with Big Jack Johnson, the Jelly Roll Kings, and his own group, Big T and the Family Band.

*All events subject to change.