Alan Govenar is an award-winning writer, folklorist, photographer, and filmmaker. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and is president of Documentary Arts, a nonprofit organization he founded in 1985 to present new perspectives on historical issues and diverse cultures. Govenar received a B.A. from Ohio State University, an M.A. from the University of Texas at Austin, and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Dallas. He is the author of twenty-seven books, including Texas Blues: The Rise of a Contemporary Sound (ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research), Deep Ellum: The Other Side of Dallas (co-authored with Jay Brakefield), Stompin’ at the Savoy, The Early Years of Rhythm and Blues, Lightnin’ Hopkins: His Life and Blues (ARSC Award for Best History in Music), and Osceola: Memories of a Sharecropper’s Daughter (First Place, New York Book Festival for Children’s Non-Fiction). Govenar’s feature-length documentaries, The Beat Hotel, Master Qi and the Monkey King, and You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, are distributed by First Run Features. The off-Broadway premiere of Govenar’s new musical Texas in Paris garnered rave reviews in the New York Times and the Huffington Post, and was nominated for a Lortel award and four Audelco awards.
